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Tender Bender posted:They're also a literal Evil Empire that kidnaps, tortures, and murders billions. This is shown onscreen. apparently no body in the universe cares about this, seeing the rebels get literally 0 support. Meanwhile the imperials can lose and lose but still never go down. Their foundation is very strong as we can see in the movie, and the rebels' very weak
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Jan 7, 2018 21:06
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It's simple. The Republic was always built on a model of taking revenues/resources from the Outer Rim, while cutting the exploited populations' leaders in just enough to keep them cooperative (this is guys like Lott Dodd and that lol fat Twi'lek senator). This lets the upper crust of the Republic live on (seemingly) laborless paradise planets like Naboo, but the "heart" of the Republic (as seen on Coruscant) seems to be dole societies of listless drug addicts watching robot football. It's incredibly easy for an avowedly populist strongman like Palpatine, or even a dope like General Hux(ster) to secure a popular support simply by promising jobs--no more outsourcing to cheapie factories on Geonosis. The Corellian shipyards will be operating at quadruple capacity for the next five years! As long as dopy aristocrats--Dooku, Jimmy Schmitts, Leia--are there as a convenient punching bag, the newly nationalized Imperial command economy never needs to slow down, and those gross inferior aliens can be cut right out of the process. e: notice how neither the Clone Wars nor the Galactic Civil War ever seriously disrupts the flow of Galactic commerce. The traffic lanes of vessels over Coruscant never break stride even as Anakin carries out his purge. Harime Nui fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jan 7, 2018 |
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Jan 7, 2018 21:24
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I do think the movies would have benefited from explaining some of the new republic politics that led to the first order being so strong / republic being so weak, however I didnt need any of that info to really enjoy the movies. In the Art of TLJ and the Incredible Cutaways schematics book you get a pretty succinct explanation for poo poo. The Emperor setup a bunch of poo poo in the unknown reaches including factories and bases. The remnants of the Empire signed an armistice with the New Republic and hosed off out of the galaxy to the "uncharted systems" that the emperor happened to have charted and staffed with die hards. Using R&D ppl that came with them from the military industrial complex of the PT/OT and Tarkin initiative poo poo (like the hyperspace tracking) they build up their tech, find snoke, and come back to a galaxy with no appetite for war and smash. Meanwhile, the New Republic is not even as big as the PT's republic, and many systems remained independent because they were wary. There were laws signed that limited the size and strength of war ships, as well as laws requiring the draw down of fleet and soldiery. The Resistance is basically built off these dudes that don't wanna stop fighting, and they steal decommissioned warships to act as their fleet. I wonder if Ep9 will keep it strictly character focused like 7 and 8 or if it will now give us a broader look at the galaxy's state post Ep8. The book mentions independent systems and republic systems with imperial sympathizers in government basically capitulating immediately once starkiller base blew up hosnian prime. Other things from the book: Poe's black squadron spec ops pilots like fat snap wexly and sand snake lady were on other missions / rendezvous points so may show back up. The bombers were on a humanitarian mission delivering food and scanning equipment to a planet being hosed with by the first order during the star killer base mission. The dreadnought is the next in line of mandator class ships which showed up in clone wars era vehicle books and poo poo.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:08
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Let's be real, here. Episode IX is going to be 2 hours and 30 minutes worth of nonstop lightsaber battles and out of control force powers. There probably won't even be any dialogue or a script for that matter.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:13
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Jerkface posted:I do think the movies would have benefited from explaining some of the new republic politics that led to the first order being so strong / republic being so weak, however I didnt need any of that info to really enjoy the movies. Basically yea, it's a definite weak point in the storytelling but the movie's good anyway, the gaps are pretty easily filled if you want to think about it, and I don't see a need to keep reiterating this world building point over and over to a crowd that all agrees anyway.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:24
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Tender Bender posted:This is all shown in the movie. "It's a fleet killers, we gotta take it out." movie leads us to believe that the entire resistance fleet is destroyed during the movie
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Jan 7, 2018 23:32
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the audience doesn't care why the empire 2.0 is strong and resistance is weak because they're conditioned to that as the state of things by now
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Jan 7, 2018 23:34
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If you lived through the USA 2016 election it really should be clear why the republic was weak and bad.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:40
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euphronius posted:If you lived through the USA 2016 election it really should be clear why the republic was weak and bad. Leia was incompetent and corrupt??
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Jan 7, 2018 23:45
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gaj70 posted:Leia was incompetent and corrupt?? She want the republic. She was like ... a militant pope guerrilla
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Jan 7, 2018 23:46
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gaj70 posted:Leia was incompetent and corrupt?? Leia was probably not very effectual as a senator---since she had been part of the Rebellion since she was 16 her skillset is more along the lines of espionage, strategy and logistics; not how to build political coalitions and push bills through a Senate. She was also, as part of a restored ruling class, unwilling to radically upset the inequalities at the heart of the Galactic system.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:52
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Jerkface posted:I do think the movies would have benefited from explaining some of the new republic politics that led to the first order being so strong / republic being so weak, however I didnt need any of that info to really enjoy the movies. In the Art of TLJ and the Incredible Cutaways schematics book you get a pretty succinct explanation for poo poo. it's almost as though TFA would have been a good movie if it was actually even remotely about any of this really interesting stuff as opposed to being A New Hope But Pretty. Again, this isn't what Disney wanted. They approved of TFA as is in the safest move possible, because for Disney or any of the writers involved, it's not about and never has been about letting the past die. That is the philosophy of losers, the mindset that drives sociopaths to blow up monuments in desert countries, douse loved ones in gasoline, and light them aflame for not holding fast to some absurdly twisted form of ideology. It's the excuses of a man who tries to kill his parents, and was half-way successful. It's not the mindset that drives a multi-billion dollar corporation to success, certainly not Disney. The Sequels are about making money off of the past by repeating the same conflicts. BDT's role in TLJ is more a commentary on Disney's handling of Star Wars than it is a commentary on modern politics or economics. If Rian Johnson's intent for the character was that alone, it would actually be the most subversive thing in the entire movie. TLJ would have been a significantly better movie without the baggage of remaking ANH weighing it down. There is something really interesting about the idea of the Resistance starting off essentially as disobedient officers and 'terrorists' who stole loving warships to fight a war that the galaxy had no taste for (even after the Empire In All But Name kills billions in one button press). This is stuff that is way more original than what we've gotten so far, would accomplish some basic world building IN THE FILMS THEMSELVES, and set the stage for some actually decent commentary and story telling in a shaken-up setting. Instead, we have a pair of movies filled with things that don't happen organically between each film, or even within their own runtimes. We get to see Finn "grow up" again. We get to see Poe go through a leadership building course in the second film after showing absolutely no need for one in the first. Rey's a prodigy force user not because the force was 'democratized' or whatever horseshit people want to tie their own personal brand of progressive thinking to; A New Hope had a prodigy pilot (and eventual Jedi) in it, so we need another of those here (the twist is that we've reversed the order they'll happen in). The Resistance is The Rebellion Except Not, Except It Is (in TFA), but in TLJ it isn't and nobody has faith in it for reasons (that you can learn about if you click this button on Amazon and get these three frequently bought together books for a cool $50.67!)
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Jan 7, 2018 23:52
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Liea is a failure at the end of TLJ as well. It's over for her.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:53
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Tender Bender posted:This is all shown in the movie.  : So I want Rey to meet this old cynical rear end in a top hat that refuses to train her because he has become a nihilist and is unmoved by the peril his friends and family face. : So Rey is directed to a different teacher by Luke? : that would be too disjointed and the story would jump around too much. Let's just say some poo poo happened to Luke. : So we should film a series of short scenes to show the progression of Luke teaching Ben Solo and losing him to Snoke? : what, do I look like some kind of writer/director?1/10,000 of the duration of the movie spent on showing a single moment of an already transformed Luke about to murder his nephew
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Jan 8, 2018 00:01
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euphronius posted:Liea is a failure at the end of TLJ as well. It's over for her. Leia is reduced to a commander who refuses to let soldiers under her command 'die needlessly' in a war against actual space nazis unless they die needlessly in the appropriate fashion. There's probably an anime character who manages to make this idea look worse, but I don't watch a whole lot of the stuff coming out these days.
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Jan 8, 2018 00:03
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Jonathan Fisk posted:the audience doesn't care why the empire 2.0 is strong and resistance is weak because they're conditioned to that as the state of things by now This would work for a reboot, not for a movie that's a sequel to the previous films. But even if you would want the same state of power as in the OT there could have been a thousand ways to do it better and in more elegant way. It's never a good argument to basically say "they didn't bother because the audience doesn't care". That's how Transformer movies are made. Do you guys want SW to become Transformers? ;p
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Jan 8, 2018 00:05
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That already happened. Once the first series was a hit, what was initially a conflict between some space-cops and a disruptive band of terrorists became Shakespearian Tragedy cum endless soap opera about an eternal war between "two races: one programmed to defend, the other to destroy." Likewise the Star Wars EU essentially reassuring us that the events of the first three movies are the manifestation of an eleventy-billion year old cycle of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire with Space Knights, to be repeated for all time.
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Jan 8, 2018 00:11
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Kylo Ren will somehow stop the endless revolution/counterrevolution from taking place, ushering in a fascist utopia. 
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Jan 8, 2018 00:15
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Corky Romanovsky posted:
We don't need to see it. The original trilogy shows and explains zero of what happened to obi wan and yoda, but we can still understand the characters. Same for Luke. Your desire for an EU comic is valid but is not a flaw in the film. Like are you actually confused as to why an old man who's life's work has been undone, whose mistakes were a major part of that, and who inadvertently led his nephew down the path to becoming Hitler, is no longer a fresh faced farm boy? Tender Bender fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 00:17
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LinkesAuge posted:This would work for a reboot, not for a movie that's a sequel to the previous films. it's not meant as an argument in favor of this bad film
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Jan 8, 2018 00:21
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Tender Bender posted:We don't need to see it. The original trilogy shows and explains zero of what happened to obi wan and yoda, but we can still understand the characters. Same for Luke. The OT frames itself as being sequels to things we haven't see yet, but throughout the first film we actually do learn a little bit about the current state of affairs for the Empire, the Rebellion, and the people living in it. By the end of the OT, the Empire is defeated. Then we got the Prequels, and regardless of whether you like them or not, they end more or less where they should: the old Republic is destroyed. The seeds of the Rebellion are sown, even as the Empire is ascendant. The sequels want to have it this way, without even bothering to lay the same groundwork that the OT did. It's just another little way that the sequels are utter garbage.
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Jan 8, 2018 00:24
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the biggest problem is the rebellion starts out with like a thousand guys in TLJ. it's too few and it creates a lot of questions that are answered like "gently caress rebels they suck and don't deserve poo poo".
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Jan 8, 2018 00:27
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fivegears4reverse posted:The OT frames itself as being sequels to things we haven't see yet, but throughout the first film we actually do learn a little bit about the current state of affairs for the Empire, the Rebellion, and the people living in it. By the end of the OT, the Empire is defeated. Then we got the Prequels, and regardless of whether you like them or not, they end more or less where they should: the old Republic is destroyed. The seeds of the Rebellion are sown, even as the Empire is ascendant. I agree that the sequels don't lay the groundwork, but not that they do any less than the original trilogy or that they are garbage.
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Jan 8, 2018 00:28
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TildeATH posted:it would besmirch the memory of an actress Hollywood treated like poo poo? If by that you mean "was on all of the drugs".
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Jan 8, 2018 00:37
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Tender Bender posted:I agree that the sequels don't lay the groundwork, but not that they do any less than the original trilogy or that they are garbage. The original trilogy doesn't have to lay much groundwork because "the Evil Empire runs the galaxy and has for quite a while and that's where they're strong" is pretty self-explanatory. That the First Order is represented to be a fairly marginal faction but seems to have basically unlimited resources demands a bit more explanation.
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Jan 8, 2018 01:53
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General Dog posted:The original trilogy doesn't have to lay much groundwork because "the Evil Empire runs the galaxy and has for quite a while and that's where they're strong" is pretty self-explanatory. That the First Order is represented to be a fairly marginal faction but seems to have basically unlimited resources demands a bit more explanation. Much like a new hope, this series presents itself as a followup to the collapse of an ineffectual republic and a rise of a fascist empire. Again, the fact that I don't have a history book depicting exactly what happened is definitely a thing that's true, but doesn't make the movie hard to understand. The first order is not represented to be a marginal faction, as demonstrated by your observation that they seem to have unlimited resources.
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Jan 8, 2018 02:32
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It isn't about "hard to understand" it is about effectual storytelling. E: generally, you don't take the same actor and make them play a character with the same name, but be obviously a very different character without showing the audience how they came to change. It doesn't need to be a feature-length film in its own right, but probably could have been addressed in 90 seconds. We didn't need this for obi-wan or yoda because they were not established characters at the time. And if you go from the standpoint of how they were last depicted in Episode III, they are still very much the same character, unlike TLJ Luke. Corky Romanovsky fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 03:00
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Corky Romanovsky posted:It isn't about "hard to understand" it is about effectual storytelling. I agree that it's a problem with the movie and it should be better fleshed out. I just don't agree that it's as significant a problem as you seem to.
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Jan 8, 2018 03:11
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Corky Romanovsky posted:We didn't need this for obi-wan or yoda because they were not established characters at the time. And if you go from the standpoint of how they were last depicted in Episode III, they are still very much the same character, unlike TLJ Luke. On the positive side, they'll probably split Episode IX into two (maybe 3) separate 2.5 hour movies, so they'll have plenty of time for flashbacks.
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Jan 8, 2018 03:57
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Tender Bender posted:I agree that it's a problem with the movie and it should be better fleshed out. I just don't agree that it's as significant a problem as you seem to. Never let dialogue, acting, pacing, tone, or plot get in the way of enjoying a movie.
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Jan 8, 2018 03:57
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Gonz posted:Let's be real, here. Episode IX is going to be 2 hours and 30 minutes worth of nonstop lightsaber battles and out of control force powers. It’s being written by the dude who wrote the script for Batman V superman so get ready for a lot of weird stuff. I’m excited 
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Jan 8, 2018 03:59
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Corky Romanovsky posted:It isn't about "hard to understand" it is about effectual storytelling. The reasons Luke is the way he is are shown both in the state of the galaxy in the film, the characters we see in both films (his best friends and relatives whose lives have crumbled because of him), and are directly told to us, by Luke, in several scenes. This movie has problems on its own, you don't need to invent others out of nothing. How is Luke a "different character", anyway? Corky Romanovsky posted:Never let dialogue, acting, pacing, tone, or plot get in the way of enjoying a movie. Never let an earnest conversation get in the way of a snarky post. Tender Bender fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 04:07
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Tender Bender posted:I agree that the sequels don't lay the groundwork, but not that they do any less than the original trilogy or that they are garbage. The original film does give a lot of setup in the scene on the Death Star, establishing in a few lines that: - The Empire's inherited the institutions and bureaucracy of the old Republic - The Rebellion has supporters in the Imperial Senate, so presumably represents old Republic values - The Empire's been slowly centralizing power, and the Death Star gives them the power to rule openly as a dictatorship. Right there, we learn where both the Empire and Rebellion get their resources, why the Death Star's important, and what the stakes are. We don't get a lot of historical detail - the Empire could be foreign conquerors using Republic institutions to bolder the legitimacy of their occupation for all we know - but we know enough that the basics of the film itself seem to make sense. The sequels fail to do even that. Is the First Order an actual state, or just a marauding fleet extorting the galaxy? I don't know! And that's relevant, because we need to know, for example, if taking out the dreadnought at the start is a major blow to them or a loss they can quickly replace. And worse, character arcs aren't given enough detail to make sense. Compare: In the original trilogy, we're told "Vader was seduced by the dark side". Alright, cool. It was a temperamental flaw on his part, he wanted power so he chose the 'quick and easy' path. Did he fall on his own, or did he learn from the Emperor? Doesn't really matter to understand him. In the new trilogy, we're told it was Snoke's influence that pushed Ben Solo towards the Dark Side. Alright, who's Snoke then? Shut up, doesn't matter! This is far less satisfying, and given that Kylo Ren's motivations and character are far more important to the story than Darth Vader's ever were, it's a real problem.
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Jan 8, 2018 04:18
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I don't think it does matter though. As you say Ren is very important to the ST and his motivations are well explored. Snoke is pretty much just a prop in his story.
Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 04:28
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Tender Bender posted:Never let an earnest conversation get in the way of a snarky post. It's been the primary way criticism of TLJ has been dismissed by people who actively have tried to discourage discussion. Problem with the film of every kind are described as unimportant. People critical of the film have had their political and social leanings questioned in this very thread. Earnest discussion my rear end.
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Jan 8, 2018 04:29
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fivegears4reverse posted:It's been the primary way criticism of TLJ has been dismissed by people who actively have tried to discourage discussion. Problem with the film of every kind are described as unimportant. People critical of the film have had their political and social leanings questioned in this very thread. Earnest discussion my rear end. I'm sorry you had bad experiences in this thread then, you seem to be taking this personally, but I still don't think a lack of wookiepedia material is enough to derail the film. Angry Salami posted:The original film does give a lot of setup in the scene on the Death Star, establishing in a few lines that: Hard disagree on the Ren and Snoke stuff, as Irony said Ren's current motivations are well explored, they're probably the best part of these movies. I can see how the OT's world was more effectively portrayed than this one's though, you're right. I think these would be better movies if the table was set better, it's probably their biggest flaw, aside from Finn getting severely shortchanged in TLJ.
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Jan 8, 2018 04:36
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LinkesAuge posted:This would work for a reboot, not for a movie that's a sequel to the previous films. Ha ha too late.
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Jan 8, 2018 04:52
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I'd be 1000% down for a Star Wars where it was revealed Harriet Tubman was involved with the Space Fighters or whatever
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Jan 8, 2018 05:41
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Jerkface posted:There is a prelude to TLJ comic that shows there was 1 person who checked the logs right before SK base blew up, and Phasma spends the comic hunting him down and killing him and then the witnesses who came with her to hunt down the guy (under the pretense that he was the one who did it). This apparently relates to her novel where she is shown to be a survivor who will do anything it takes to live. This sounds like an entirely different character.
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Jan 8, 2018 08:54
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Justin_Brett posted:This sounds like an
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