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Tender Bender posted:It sounds like you actually got the point, that everyone, both leaders and subordinates should trust one another instead of trying to handle it themselves, and hosed up by not doing so. But for some reason you think the movie didn't convey this. Because the movie goes out of it’s way to make Poe look like a stupid rear end in a top hat while Holdo is redeemed and given a heroic death. It is not framed, in the narrative, as a “both sides are wrong,” misunderstanding. And also because if Poe had literally just done nothing everything would have worked out perfectly. There’s no creeping sense of dread as you realize that for perfectly avoidable reasons tragedy is about to strike. Instead you get band of intrepid heroes setting out to save everyone and then the twist is that they were stupid and wrong and their actions were worse than pointless, they were actively harmful.
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Dec 17, 2017 21:58
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YOLOsubmarine posted:Because the movie goes out of it’s way to make Poe look like a stupid rear end in a top hat while Holdo is redeemed and given a heroic death. It is not framed, in the narrative, as a “both sides are wrong,” misunderstanding. I don't think it does, though. Once they defuse the situation Leia and Holdo smile and say they like Poe, and he's just plopped back in action without missing a beat. Poe's actions, as well as Holdo's silence, both contribute to a ton of avoidable tragedy. But in terms of tone or direction the movie doesn't really frame either in a negative light, they both get positive spin by the end.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:02
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It was interesting to see what kind of person liea was grooming for leadership as well. That's all gone now.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:03
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Like, what is the best joke in The Last Jedi? It's pretty clearly the sight gag involving the laundry press, right? That didn't involve anyone mugging for the camera or sidestepping the pathos in a scene to drop a smug, meta one-liner or doing like...a space prank-call. If you're not in a comedy, and if the dramatic stakes are very high, then it seems like most of your jokes should be sight gags like that which the characters are not forced to participate in or acknowledge.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:04
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Crion posted:It's pretty clearly the sight gag involving the laundry press, right? Definitely.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:06
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Poe comes off as a stupid rear end in a top hat because he is a stupid rear end in a top hat, and a reverse-deathbed forgiveness from the people desperate and foolish enough to put him in any position of leadership comes off as shallow and thin because it is.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:07
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Tender Bender posted:I don't think it does, though. Once they defuse the situation Leia and Holdo smile and say they like Poe, and he's just plopped back in action without missing a beat. This is basically my problem with the movie too. I really liked it in broad strokes, but there were a few glaring instances where the film did something bold and then chickened out from that choice just too soon. Like, it's really bold and interesting to have Poe be wildly wrong and get people killed. I wish the movie had let it happen. Imagine how brilliant Poe's character arc would be if he's straight up told, "You're the reason tons of people died and if this was a normal war you'd be shot by firing squad but you are one of maybe 10 pilots we have left. Then he has to grapple with himself through the last act and there's room to grow in IX. Or if there was a moment when Rose had to choose between saving the slave kids or running to save the fleet and she chose the fleet. I don't know, the movie did some amazing things with the mythos of the entire series and was generally very good, it just chickened out at moments it really shouldn't have and frankly, didn't need to.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:07
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Poe: [disobeys orders, gets resistance forces killed, later commits mutiny, indirectly gets a large percentage of remaining resistance forces killed] Leia / Holdo: 
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Dec 17, 2017 22:07
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Crion posted:Like, what is the best joke in The Last Jedi? It's pretty clearly the sight gag involving the laundry press, right? That didn't involve anyone mugging for the camera or sidestepping the pathos in a scene to drop a smug, meta one-liner or doing like...a space prank-call. If you're not in a comedy, and if the dramatic stakes are very high, then it seems like most of your jokes should be sight gags like that which the characters are not forced to participate in or acknowledge. Its definitely tickling Rey with the reed during the force lesson.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:08
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One obvious thing about the ramming is that we don’t actually know how effective ‘conventional’ Star Wars weaponry and shielding are. There’s probably no detailed numbers on how much energy a Star Destroyer’s turbolaser puts out, or how much energy a capital ship’s shields absorb, and there’s certainly no reliable ones that works in the setting rigorously adhere to. Ships in Star Wars shoot each other with magic guns, and protect themselves with magic shields, and we have no idea how they match up to kinetics delivered at near-lightspeed. With that in mind, it’s totally plausible that the only way to penetrate the shields of anything important with a hyperspeed ram is to use a capital ship (or similarly massive object) of your own - and that fairly simply answers why it’s not a more popular tactic. The missiles are loving expensive.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:15
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Who are all the people Poe got killed? Are you guys pinning all the deaths of the Resistance pilots who went on the Dreadnaught bombing run on Poe? I guess I missed the rest of the deaths that could have been related to Poe after that since I didn't see anyone actually die during the mutiny. Everyone was firing on stun.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:17
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Crion posted:Poe comes off as a stupid rear end in a top hat because he is a stupid rear end in a top hat, and a reverse-deathbed forgiveness from the people desperate and foolish enough to put him in any position of leadership comes off as shallow and thin because it is. I kind of agree. I'm saying that I don't think it's a problem that the movie portrays Pope's actions negatively, because as you pointed out it arguably does the opposite. I think it's a real problem moving forward that most of the principle cast spent this movie bouncing off of characters that are dead now. What's Poe's dynamic with Finn and Rey? Or Rey and Finn at this point? I don't get a sense that this cast are friends the way han/luke/leia were. Finn and Rose are a new dynamic so I guess if she continues to be a character that's something.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:18
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AndyElusive posted:Who are all the people Poe got killed? Are you guys pinning all the deaths of the Resistance pilots who went on the Dreadnaught bombing run on Poe? had Rose and Finn not gone on their sidequest the First Order wouldn't have known about the cloaked transports
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Dec 17, 2017 22:18
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AndyElusive posted:Who are all the people Poe got killed? Are you guys pinning all the deaths of the Resistance pilots who went on the Dreadnaught bombing run on Poe? The hacker guy told the first order about the cloaked transports, so everyone that died from that point on died because the hacker guy was there, which was because of Poe's plan. I admittedly missed how exactly this happened.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:19
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Tender Bender posted:The hacker guy told the first order about the cloaked transports, so everyone that died from that point on died because the hacker guy was there, which was because of Poe's plan. I admittedly missed how exactly this happened. He told Finn and Rose about the transport evacuation plan while they were on the hacker’s ship, and while he didn’t know about the idea to cloak them at the time, ‘they’re going to escape on transports - I see no transports - better check for cloaking’ is a pretty obvious chain of logic.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:22
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AndyElusive posted:Who are all the people Poe got killed? Are you guys pinning all the deaths of the Resistance pilots who went on the Dreadnaught bombing run on Poe? Yes, him disobeying direct orders from Leia to do the dreadnaught attack (which came after the planet was evacuated) puts those deaths on him But ALSO everyone who dies on the transports getting sniped at the end of the movie is on him too, because he authorized and implemented Finn and Rose's Very Disney Sidequest, and was the guy Del Toro's hacker overheard talking about said transport plan.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:22
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More like Poe Dumberon
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Dec 17, 2017 22:23
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The movie isn't even coy about 90% of the Resistance pilots dying on the dreadnaught run being Poe's fault; he's immediately upbraided and demoted for it by Leia, and then reminded of this later (and in fact being reminded of this by Holdo is pretty clearly what galvanizes him to undermine her command by any means necessary)
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Dec 17, 2017 22:25
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TFA hit all the nostalgia buttons for me, and was very much *exactly* what I had come to expect from a Star Wars movie, and as a result, I was disappointed. TLJ made me feel a little unsettled and unsure of what was going to happen, and was the total opposite of what I had come to expect from a Star Wars movie, and I left it feeling really drat happy about the future of the SW cinematic universe. I think one of the parts I really liked most about the movie was the Finn, Rose & Poe subplot. Not only did their efforts fail to work, but they wound up loving things up even worse. These people we're supposed to think of as heroes hosed *EVERYTHING* up, to the point where they almost got the entire resistance completely killed. It was basically the story of the Jedi all over - bunch of people who think they know better completely misread the situation and get a whole bunch of people killed. The kids on the casino planet are just going to get even more abused, the dog-horse things are going to be retrieved and tortured even more until they are completely broken, and the rich assholes who are on top are still going to be on top. The second best thing was Luke trolling the gently caress out of Kylo Ren. Finally, it's interesting that Yoda showed that force ghosts can do more than just talk. I wonder if there'll be more with that kind of thing going forward. Force ghost Anakin sith-slapping Kylo Ren when he's throwing a tantrum would be hilarious.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:25
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Phasma is a throwaway character because she represents Finn's journey and that's about the only function she has in the film, other than being cool and marketable. Her mirrored armour is literally "take a look at yourself". The first time Finn interacts with her in the movies is when he's realising that he and his squadmates are disposable and that he didn't want to blindly kill defenseless villagers. The second time he confronts her is when he's overcome his impulse to run away and gone back to challenge the First Order, and he literally throws her into the garbage. The final time he confronts her is after he has once more made the choice to fight rather than flee, and he literally smashes the mirror before she dies. e: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phasm The second definition is pertinent. She's a faceless representation of the authoritarian forces against which Finn is rebelling. Only when she's defeated is the human underneath the armour revealed. SadisTech fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Dec 17, 2017 |
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Dec 17, 2017 22:25
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Crion posted:Yes, him disobeying direct orders from Leia to do the dreadnaught attack (which came after the planet was evacuated) puts those deaths on him But who authorized the bombing run? Poe was out there taking out the guns and drawing away the escort fighters and then the entirety of the Resistance starfighters get scrambled and bombers get involved, so it reasons to believe there was some kind of briefing set up ahead of time prior to Poe playing chicken with the First Order fleet. Crion posted:But ALSO everyone who dies on the transports getting sniped at the end of the movie is on him too, because he authorized and implemented Finn and Rose's Very Disney Sidequest, and was the guy Del Toro's hacker overheard talking about said transport plan. But wouldn't that be DJ's fault and it's his character to blame for the First Order discovering the fleeing transports? The blame shouldn't fall all the way up to Poe. If we're going that route, wouldn't it actually be Leia's fault for not letting her surrogate son in on Plan B or C?
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Dec 17, 2017 22:29
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Don’t forget that Leia let the bombers be sortied in the first place She had the authority to order them back and let Poe die She didn’t because? (It’s because she knows Poe is right)
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Dec 17, 2017 22:30
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metztli posted:I think one of the parts I really liked most about the movie was the Finn, Rose & Poe subplot. Not only did their efforts fail to work, but they wound up loving things up even worse. These people we're supposed to think of as heroes hosed *EVERYTHING* up, to the point where they almost got the entire resistance completely killed. It was basically the story of the Jedi all over - bunch of people who think they know better completely misread the situation and get a whole bunch of people killed. The kids on the casino planet are just going to get even more abused, the dog-horse things are going to be retrieved and tortured even more until they are completely broken, and the rich assholes who are on top are still going to be on top. I don't think that's the message at all, judging from the final scenes of the movie.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:30
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AndyElusive posted:But who authorized the bombing run? Poe was out there taking out the guns and drawing away the escort fighters and then the entirety of the Resistance starfighters get scrambled and bombers get involved, so it reasons to believe there was some kind of briefing set up ahead of time prior to Poe playing chicken with the First Order fleet. Correct, Leia is a disaster of a commander as well. Mainly she is a disaster of a commander for trusting Poe. That does not absolve Poe, who was the one who ordered the bombing run forward after Leia told him to call it off Could Leia have called them back directly? Who cares! Clearly she didn't, and that's what matters. We're not talking about what might have been done, we're talking about what was shown on the screen. And yes it's absolutely Poe's fault that he authorized a mission that knowingly brought a mercenary into contact with people he then chatted openly about military plans with on a public line, what is this. Of course the mercenary sold them out. That's what mercenaries do! As for the last bit, in a military command structure you don't actually just get to mutiny and do whatever you want because your boss doesn't let you in on something. And even if it's the right thing to do -- which it wasn't here -- that still doesn't absolve you of responsibility for your decision Crion fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Dec 17, 2017 |
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Dec 17, 2017 22:34
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Z. Autobahn posted:I feel like you could have plugged up 95% of complaints with a three-line rewrite: that's the problem with every bad part of TLJ. so much of it comes down to the script being flat out bad when it comes to anything that isn't the luke/rey/ren plot this is a film that can't decide how many ships are being tracked and the logic changes depending on what the scene needs
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Dec 17, 2017 22:35
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SadisTech posted:Phasma is a throwaway character because she represents Finn's journey and that's about the only function she has in the film, other than being cool and marketable. Her mirrored armour is literally "take a look at yourself". The first time Finn interacts with her in the movies is when he's realising that he and his squadmates are disposable and that he didn't want to blindly kill defenseless villagers. The second time he confronts her is when he's overcome his impulse to run away and gone back to challenge the First Order, and he literally throws her into the garbage. The final time he confronts her is after he has once more made the choice to fight rather than flee, and he literally smashes the mirror before she dies. I'm just hoping that Johnson made her his personal Boba Fett: beloved as "cool" for no reason other than her armor, assumed to be competent by fans because of one moment of effectiveness, dies like a punk.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:36
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2 things, I can't believe Akbar is gone. And I can't believe Star Wars kid is now canon.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:36
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Crion posted:The movie isn't even coy about 90% of the Resistance pilots dying on the dreadnaught run being Poe's fault; he's immediately upbraided and demoted for it by Leia, and then reminded of this later (and in fact being reminded of this by Holdo is pretty clearly what galvanizes him to undermine her command by any means necessary) There’s also some pretty obvious subtextual sexism in how he reacts to Holdo. Dude mentions how the well-coiffed woman in the long, fancy dress isn’t what he expected a war hero to be like, and then she publicly emasculates him. After that, he just refuses to give her the time of day.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:39
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Darth Walrus posted:There’s also some pretty obvious subtextual sexism in how he reacts to Holdo. Dude mentions how the well-coiffed woman in the long, fancy dress isn’t what he expected a war hero to be like, and then she publicly emasculates him. After that, he just refuses to give her the time of day. I can see where this may come from but isn't it also true that Leia wears fancy dresses? He clearly thinks of her as a war hero Has Holdo been on the ship the whole time? Surely she's somewhere in the command structure of the Rebellion, and Poe being who he is would know the major players, right? So is the surprise sexist, or something else?
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Dec 17, 2017 22:44
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Crion posted:Correct, Leia is a disaster of a commander as well. Mainly she is a disaster of a commander for trusting Poe. That does not absolve Poe, who was the one who ordered the bombing run forward after Leia told him to call it off No, this is wrong. She orders him to call it off AFTER the bombers have been sent in. And someone had to give him all the bombers for some reason, as well as tell him to clear out the guns so they can go in in the first place. Again, if TLJ just had Leia give the order, then Poe sends the bombers in, the whole thing would be much clearer. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Dec 17, 2017 |
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Dec 17, 2017 22:44
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Darth Walrus posted:There’s also some pretty obvious subtextual sexism in how he reacts to Holdo. Dude mentions how the well-coiffed woman in the long, fancy dress isn’t what he expected a war hero to be like, and then she publicly emasculates him. After that, he just refuses to give her the time of day. Yep. He spends the movie acting like a child, and while he's willing to put up with discipline from mom, he's not going to take it from the babysitter Crion fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Dec 17, 2017 |
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Dec 17, 2017 22:45
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Milky Moor posted:No, this is wrong. She orders him to call it off AFTER the bombers have been sent in. And someone had to give him all the bombers for some reason. ...But that doesn't actually contradict what I said. You're just phrasing the bombers being sent in as some sort of override of Leia's following abort command, which is ignored by Poe. Then the movie tells us that because Poe ignored this abort command, everyone got killed, and it's his fault, and why he's being demoted. I think it's all pretty clear!
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Dec 17, 2017 22:47
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YOLOsubmarine posted:the leader refuses to provide any information Well, yeah. There's a bit right after Holdo is appointed temp commander while Leia is out where Poe, who was recently demoted, remember, demands to know what's going on/what the plan is. She tells him straight-up that she won't tell him, because a) he hosed up royally and can't be trusted to be involved in making decisions at this point, and b) he's no longer a commander, for precisely that reason. The reason the audience doesn't know Holdo's plan is the same reason that Poe et al don't. The movie is shown from their perspectives, not from Holdo's.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:47
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Wait is Poe commanding the battle from his X-Wing? drat he is that good.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:47
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Crion posted:...But that doesn't actually contradict what I said. You're just phrasing the bombers being sent in as some sort of override of Leia's following abort command, which is ignored by Poe. Then the movie tells us that, because Poe ignored this abort command, everyone got killed, and it's his fault, and why he's being demoted. I think it's all pretty clear! It actually does. The bombers are slow and ungainly and are clearly outmaneuvered by the TIEs. The TIEs are also on the field at that point. They would all be killed in the retreat, making their deaths even more meaningless. Remember how Poe says "once you commit to an attack you see it through"? What is Leia's argument? It's that 'people died'. Not 'Poe, you idiot, you disobeyed a direct order regardless'. Well, it's a war, people die, and everyone would have died trying to get back to the cruiser. "That does not absolve Poe, who was the one who ordered the bombing run forward after Leia told him to call it off" That the bombing run comes before Leia orders him to retreat is actually directly contradictory. You are moving the goalposts.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:50
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This movie managed to build an impressive sense of dread when, after the opening scroll, it decided to become a science-fanfiction remake of Memphis Belle except not even the titular space-B17 made it this time. Holy gently caress, everything about the space combat was bad bad BAD even after Episode 3 gave us "Missiles that don't destroy their targets, but rather scatter things that eventually WILL!!!1" Every time it cut back to the rebel "fleet" running from Destiny 2's triangles, you were always given an establishing shot that reminded us the First Order are, in fact, the WORST players of Worms Armageddon ever. If they only added a little more power and angle to their space lasers that are clearly being affected by SOME sort of gravity, they might have been able to hit something other than the rear end end of ships that are only going straight. And not maneuvering whatsoever. And the worst part about Rian's version of ESB's great space chase is that it NEVER changes beyond this. The tension isn't from a wildly dynamic environment that is dangerous in and of itself. It's a slow-speed half-season of 24, in space, with less compelling dialogue and lower stakes somehow, despite apparently the very existence of the rebellion being a huge question mark. Every time we return to The Fleet, it's always a similar establishing shot, as though the director realized that we probably were too stupid/disengaged from the on-screen drama at this point to realize that there's actual danger. We're forced then to watch Poe/The Rebels simultaneously present themselves as the smartest people in the room while also being grotesquely stupid simply because nobody is actually talking to anyone about anything. Whole swaths of the movie didn't even need to happen had anyone talked about anything actually important before snap decisions started flying. Which might have cost us a visually interesting space casino and Benicio Del Toro, but we might have gotten a movie that knew what it wanted to be from the word go. I'm a little bummed about Laura Dern's utter waste of a sacrifice. From build up to actual execution, the only thing ultimately impressive about is is the visual effects. Her character was built up to be someone we dislike because of "cowardice" and because she's an "authority" that our big stronk X-wing pilot distrusts by principal, and what little they do to reinforce that is crudely reversed by having this be "the plan" all along. (seriously I thought that was pretty damned disappointing that the movie frames Holdo as both an ignorant authority figure who actually isn't ((but actually is because her plan didn't work because she and literally everyone else in charge of what's left of the rebels contributed to the failure)) and then sacrifices themselves essentially for nothing because we haven't had our rip-off Hoth sequence yet) Every problem in The Force Awakens that held back an otherwise entertaining film, is amplified here in The Last Jedi. Except there's little to no emotional punch here, just a poorly-told clinical lesson about how being impulsive and secretive is bad, except explicitly when it isn't even though ultimately it still is????
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Dec 17, 2017 22:51
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Fixating on "who sent the bombers in" (it could just as easily have been Poe, the Commander) is wandering off into the weeds because we can never answer that question. But we don't need to answer that question, because the movie gives us more than enough information to tell who is to blame for the Pyrrhic victory against the dreadnaught
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Dec 17, 2017 22:51
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Crion posted:Yep. He spends the movie acting like a child, and while he's willing to put up with discipline from mom, he's not going to take it from the babysitter The like the themes presented with Poe, Finn, Rey, and Rose. I felt like the movie is saying that being a hero trying to live up to legends is a bad idea. And we see time and time again in the movie that it blows up in their face.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:52
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Milky Moor posted:It actually does. I'm not getting dragged into a tactical realism assessment of when the bombers could have aborted their run, but Leia tells them to get out of there well before they've engaged the TIEs and could still use their onboard hyperdrive whatevers. Poe made the choice to commit, it's on him.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:53
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Crion posted:Fixating on "who sent the bombers in" (it could just as easily have been Poe, the Commander) is wandering off into the weeds because we can never answer that question. But we don't need to answer that question, because the movie gives us more than enough information to tell who is to blame for the Pyrrhic victory against the dreadnaught Shift those goalposts, friend. It still won't improve the terrible script. It's the very first part of the film. It should serve a stronger introduction to Poe's arc than 'Eh, maybe he was responsible, maybe he wasn't, we can't actually know.' Similarly, if the bombers hadn't taken out the dreadnaught when they did, the dreadnaught would've fired on the command cruiser and destroyed it. Weird.
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Dec 17, 2017 22:53
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