Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

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Mulaney Power Move: Dec 30, 2004

chewbacca comes home for life day but flips out on grandpa for jacking off in front of his wife and then when his kid laughs he beats the poo poo out of him for stealing cookies and his wife is crying hysterically while han and art carney try to calm everyone down

# ? Apr 20, 2019 00:24

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 11:24

Bogus Adventure: Jan 11, 2017; More like "Bulges Adventure"

Chomp8645 posted:

Gatalenta was a warm, uncommonly tranquil planet famed for its tea, lengthy, erudite poetry and meditative retreats. Natives of Gatalenta were renowned for their calmness and serenity, and rose each day to thank the planet's multiple suns for rising. Love and compassion were taught and practiced fondly by the people of Gatalenta, and crying openly was considered a virtue and proof of a caring heart.[1] The Gatalentan people were also known for living austerely, with the only colorful parts of their attire being traditional red cloaks. They were ruled by the Council of Mothers. Slavery was illegal on the planet, and slaves were not allowed to be brought to the planet. If a slave was brought there, and their master was caught, the slave was set free.[2] A member of the New Republic, Gatalenta was represented in the Galactic Senate for over twenty years by Senator Tai-Lin Garr. New Republic pilot Joph Seastriker also came from Gatalenta,[1] as did Resistance Vice Admiral[3] Amilyn Holdo.[2] In the years before the Galactic Civil War, Gatalenta had a strong Jedi tradition, and the old Jedi legends remained alive on Gatalenta in spite of the Jedi Purge. In fact, Gatalenta became one of Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker's first destinations when he began studying the history of the Jedi Order.[1]

These are my kind of Star Wars!

# ? Apr 20, 2019 00:46

Comfy Fleece Sweater: Apr 2, 2013; You see, but you do not observe.

*begins chanting*
Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars!!

# ? Apr 20, 2019 00:50

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Poe should have learnt that only suicide bombing is acceptable when winning major military victories, not regular bombing

# ? Apr 20, 2019 00:57

Bogus Adventure: Jan 11, 2017; More like "Bulges Adventure"

"Would you like some tea? Perhaps a lemonade?"

"Could you mix them together and give me an Amilyn Palmerdo?"

"No! You can only have lemonade or tea! There is no mix!"

"Only a Sith believes in absolutes! I will do what I must!"

"You will try!"

*competitive crying session commences*

# ? Apr 20, 2019 01:01

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

Return of the Johnson

A director only a Lucas could love

# ? Apr 20, 2019 01:10

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

Mulaney Power Move posted:

chewbacca comes home for life day but flips out on grandpa for jacking off in front of his wife and then when his kid laughs he beats the poo poo out of him for stealing cookies and his wife is crying hysterically while han and art carney try to calm everyone down

baby got bacca

# ? Apr 20, 2019 01:21

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

Mulaney Power Move posted:

chewbacca comes home for life day but flips out on grandpa for jacking off in front of his wife and then when his kid laughs he beats the poo poo out of him for stealing cookies and his wife is crying hysterically while han and art carney try to calm everyone down

This is why I hate Life Days

# ? Apr 20, 2019 01:50

Moola: Aug 16, 2006

Vim Fuego posted:

The first time we see Vice-Admiral Holdo in The Last Jedi, we see her through the eyes of Poe Dameron: hotshot flyboy, recently slapped down twice in the Resistance’s scramble to evacuate their compromised base. The first blow to Poe’s ego and stability is his demotion from Commander to Captain by General Leia Organa herself, a suitable reprimand for spearheading the devastatingly costly bombing run which provides the film with its opening set-piece. No sooner has Poe processed this—if indeed he has processed it—than he’s knocked further off balance by the loss of all of the Resistance high command save Leia, who is comatose and out of commission. In this state—stripped of his expected personal authority, with the usual structures of command which he relies on decimated—he looks at the new leader of the remaining Resistance fleet and says incredulously to another pilot: “That’s Admiral Holdo? Battle of Chyron Belt Admiral Holdo? …not what I was expecting.”

Nor is Holdo what the viewer is, perhaps, expecting. (We are firmly in Poe’s point of view, and primed by both the long history of hotshot flyboys in the Star Wars franchise, and our own pleasurable glee at watching successfully executed violence even at high cost, to be sympathetic to him.) And yet: here is Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo, a tall thin woman in late middle age, wearing a draped floor-length dress that leaves every curve and angle of her body visible; a woman with dyed-purple hair in a style that requires at the very least a great many pins and more likely a curling iron in addition; a woman wearing star-chart bracelets and lipstick and eye makeup. She looks like a slightly-down-on-her-luck noblewoman from the Old Republic. She’s not just female, she’s femme. And she’s not just femme, she’s soft. All her age is visible; there’s no architectural framing of that body to disguise how gravity has had its way with it. Holdo, in the middle of the remnants of the Resistance, is a kind of exposed that Leia Organa—who does wear those architectural frames around her body, giving her a grandeur and a solidity—never is.

Not what I was expecting. Not the image of a woman who could win a major battle, the sort which a pilot like Poe would remember admiringly. (We don’t know much of anything about the Battle of Chyron Belt—but by Poe’s reaction, it’s a bit legendary.) It isn’t that Poe Dameron’s got a problem with women—his record in both this film and the last shows that he is friends with, respects, and easily follows and leads women—it’s that he’s got a problem with Vice-Admiral Holdo. Who isn’t what he expects. Who has swanned in to the middle of the Resistance’s desperate last stand, her purple hair a shock of color in the middle of the greys and browns and whites of the Resistance’s cobbled-together uniforms, like she’s the Woman from Altair wandered in from an entirely different story.

Then—with Leia’s words in her mouth, no less, telling the assembly to keep the flame of hope alive—she not only gives an order to keep fleeing on an apparent dead-end desperate run just out of range of the First Order’s cannons, but also dismisses Poe entirely. (She’s got good reason to. He’s just been demoted, and, as she herself says, she knows his type: the kind of person who takes big risks and doesn’t follow orders to withdraw.) We, watching, and tightly emotionally attached to Poe’s point of view—through cinematography, Poe being entirely awesome, and generations of ‘let’s blow poo poo up’ saving the day narratives—are absolutely primed to believe that she’s either a traitor or an incompetent.

A traitor? Well, there’s that ‘we have them on the end of a string’ moment from General Hux. It turns out that the string is just a new application of tracking technology which allows the First Order to follow a ship through lightspeed (please insert sidebar here about how this is one of the few solidly missed moments in this film: how did the First Order invent this tech? How long have they had this capability? It’s a glossy, over-too-fast explanation which didn’t sit well with this viewer). What if Vice-Admiral Holdo—who doesn’t let our hero be part of the need-to-know crowd—is the one letting the tracking happen? Women who look like Holdo—femme fatales, even in their middle age, women who look like women who do politics rather than fight, who like frivolous things, jewels and bright hair and makeup even in the darkest moments—we are primed to read women like that as women who will betray. This is an old trope. It’s the liquid drops of tears that you have shed / Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl—that’s Shakespeare’s Richard III, talking to Queen Elizabeth, promising that for her emotional defection (handing over her daughter to be his wife, even after he’s killed her sons), she’ll have material riches. Women who like beautiful things will betray our heroes to keep their beautiful things.

And an incompetent? That one’s simple. Leia Organa is entirely, fully, hugely competent at what she does; Leia Organa, our General, is an image of mature womanhood which is understandable and immensely welcome—she is a leader of men and women, a strength and a power. Her most affecting scene in this film—when we finally get to see her use the Force which is her birthright as much as it has ever been her brother’s—is heartbreakingly brilliant. So is her ability to delegate, to train, to be both centrally necessary and to have a system in place for when she is incapacitated. But Holdo looks like the opposite of Leia—Holdo looks like an inexperienced woman using another woman’s words, a pale substitute, a coward whose story-function is to (like so many middle-aged female characters in film) keep our heroes down. This too is a familiar trope, and we are set up to expect it by how Holdo dresses and behaves.

But that’s not how it goes. Not what I expected—well, not what we expect either, watching. Turns out that Vice-Admiral Holdo’s plan, while desperate, is exactly what the Resistance needed: a chance to get to an old Rebel base with defenses and a communications array. Turns out, also, that she’s not some lesser imitation of Leia, but a friend Leia has had from childhood (check out Claudia Grey’s lovely middle-grade novel Leia: Princess of Alderaan, where she and Holdo meet for the first time and learn to rely on each other). Their goodbyes as Leia boards the escape pod along with the rest of the Resistance are the goodbyes of dear friends who have loved each other well. “I can’t take any more losses,” Leia says, speaking in a sense for all of us. “Sure you can,” Holdo tells her. “You taught me how.”

This is the sort of friend that Leia can rely on to make an ultimate sacrifice, and thus give to us watching the best visual and sound cue in the entire film: having stayed behind to pilot the heavy cruiser Raddus while the rest of the diminished Resistance escapes to the planet Crait, Holdo eventually chooses to drive her ship while it jumps to lightspeed directly through the First Order’s flagship, destroying a great part of it and preventing the destruction of those last few escapees. She is alone when she does this. She is alone, a captain on a bridge, in her dress and her lovely hair, her mouth set in a firm and determined line, and she doesn’t hesitate.

The film’s director, Rian Johnson, gives her—and us—a silent cut as a reward. My whole theater gasped out loud into the quiet. It is the most striking visual and auditory moment in a film full of striking visual and auditory moments.

And Poe Dameron? Poe Dameron watches this too, and he gets it. When Finn—whose arc this film has been about running away, or choosing not to—says that she’s fleeing like a coward, it is Poe who says that she isn’t. It is Poe that asks us to watch what she’s about to do.

Go out like the hero she is: a middle-aged woman hero in a flimsy dress with impractical hair and impeccable military credentials.

What The Last Jedi does—amongst many other things—is present its audience with more than one mode of female power. We have Rey, strong in the Force, dangerous and necessary and emerging from nowhere to be the center of this story; we have Rose, a mechanic and a patriot, willing to make sacrifices and willing to know when sacrifice is not necessary; we have Leia Organa, the pivot on which the Resistance turns. And we have Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo, who looks like none of what we expect. Who is nevertheless what the Resistance needs, and worth Poe’s respect, and worth ours.

Now THAT'S a star trek!

# ? Apr 20, 2019 02:35

FeculentWizardTits: Aug 31, 2001

How did Luke know the name darth plagueis

It wasn't written down in those books he has because anyone who would've written it in them by the time they made the plagueis = palpatine connection was already dead

Did Obi-wan's ghost tell him? Did he just show up one day and be like hey Luke that old man you and your dad killed went by the name darth plagueis 30 years ago, pretty cool huh

Why did he say that name to Rey like she was going to know who he was talking about?

rian if you're reading this please answer

# ? Apr 20, 2019 02:43

Bogus Adventure: Jan 11, 2017; More like "Bulges Adventure"

Moola posted:

Now THAT'S a star trek!

# ? Apr 20, 2019 02:46

a peck of pickled peckers: Aug 3, 2014; I am your Redeemer! It is by my hand that you arise from the ashes of this world!

Communist Walrus posted:

rian if you're reading this please answer

Hello! Ryan Johnson here to answer your question.

1) I am horribly addicted to benzos. Everything I do, I do in a drug-induced haze and I have no idea what you�re talking about. Thankfully this crippling addiction will kill me soon.

2) I�m gay

Hope that helps!

# ? Apr 20, 2019 02:52

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Hey Ryan can I get two quarter pounders and a small fry, thanks

# ? Apr 20, 2019 03:11

Barudak: May 7, 2007

QuarkJets posted:

Hey Ryan can I get two quarter pounders and a small fry, thanks

<Gives you two quarter pounders, a small fry, and a napkin> I have subverted your expectations!

# ? Apr 20, 2019 03:13

Big Beef City: Aug 15, 2013

On a scale from one to done I just can't get over these star wars

# ? Apr 20, 2019 03:13

TheMostFrench: Jul 12, 2009; Stop for me, it's the claw!

Gaunab posted:

They should make a sequel to Jedi Academy. That game was fun.

Play Warframe. Fight dudes in space with swords, lasers, laser swords, with a variety of force power equivalents. Also has a dojo element, but the game is mainly PvE.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 03:58

Time_pants: Jun 25, 2012; Now sauntering to the ring, please welcome the lackadaisical style of the man who is always doing something...

Donovan Trip posted:

It's important because Star Wars has been about royal blood lines, and here is someone from nothing, without the Skywalker midichlorians or whatever pseudoscience the establishment Jedi believed in, a new line the force created without the Skywalker history. Yes, you are special. No, you are no one.

It's a big deal in a universe where the only important people have been Skywalkers, it's a different kind of message for a different generation of viewer. The new movie looks engineered to undo that as much as possible and I think it's going to hurt the box office internationally. The rest of the world doesn't care so much about OT.

Plus Adam Driver delivers that line with great callousness

Agreed, there are lots of ways to enjoy Star Wars, the directors working on them hating each other being one of them!

You are weird. But in, like, a gross way that I wouldn't want anywhere near my kid.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 04:26

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Barudak posted:

<Gives you two quarter pounders, a small fry, and a napkin> I have subverted your expectations!

Ryan is it true that you prefer Phantom Menace to A New Hope?

# ? Apr 20, 2019 04:51

Barudak: May 7, 2007

QuarkJets posted:

Ryan is it true that you prefer Phantom Menace to A New Hope?

Well if I cant choose my own film its definitely Star Wars: Droids

# ? Apr 20, 2019 04:57

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Barudak posted:

Well if I cant choose my own film its definitely Star Wars: Droids

That's not what I asked, well done you are a pro-tier expectation subverter

# ? Apr 20, 2019 05:11

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

QuarkJets posted:

Hey Ryan can I get two quarter pounders and a small fry, thanks

JUNIOR bacon chee. JUNIOR bacon chee. And a small... SMALL ..... seasoned curlies.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 06:16

Applewhite: Aug 16, 2014; by vyelkin; Nap Ghost

I wish that Rey would have just laid down on the ground and let the spaceship run over her.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 06:33

Backweb: Feb 14, 2009

Communist Walrus posted:

How did Luke know the name darth plagueis

It wasn't written down in those books he has because anyone who would've written it in them by the time they made the plagueis = palpatine connection was already dead

Did Obi-wan's ghost tell him? Did he just show up one day and be like hey Luke that old man you and your dad killed went by the name darth plagueis 30 years ago, pretty cool huh

Why did he say that name to Rey like she was going to know who he was talking about?

rian if you're reading this please answer

He talks about Sideous in TLJ. Jeez.

:rolleyes:

# ? Apr 20, 2019 07:13

Bogus Adventure: Jan 11, 2017; More like "Bulges Adventure"

When is Han Solo's Force ghost going to show up and guide Kylo Ren through these Star Wars?

# ? Apr 20, 2019 07:45

Chrpno: Apr 17, 2006

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

JUNIOR bacon chee. JUNIOR bacon chee. And a small... SMALL ..... seasoned curlies.

cherries jubilee and that's it.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 08:38

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

Applewhite posted:

I wish that Rey would have just laid down on the ground and let the spaceship run over her.

running myself over with a spaceship or landspeeder is the only way i can jack off and cum you stupid bitch. mother fucker.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 08:51

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

Chrpno posted:

cherries jubilee and that's it.

.... gently caress my rear end, what else...

# ? Apr 20, 2019 08:58

Bistromatic: Oct 3, 2004; And turn the inner eye
To see its path...

Like so many other things with the new movies i think Holdo was a missed opportunity that could have easily been more interesting. When she first showed up i expected some master tactician that focuses on minimising losses and avoiding direct confrontation with the superior imperial firepower. Essentially leaving the imperials feeling like they're trying to attack water with a sledgehammer and serving as a contrast to Poes very aggressive approach. But we all know what we got instead.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 09:09

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

every star wars movie made after Empire can be described as a series of missed opportunities

# ? Apr 20, 2019 09:12

Applewhite: Aug 16, 2014; by vyelkin; Nap Ghost

QuarkJets posted:

every star wars movie made after Empire can be described as a series of missed opportunities

Can't stress this enough.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 09:22

Chrpno: Apr 17, 2006

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

.... gently caress my rear end, what else...

put two of them UP YOUR rear end

# ? Apr 20, 2019 09:35

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

Chrpno posted:

put two of them UP YOUR rear end

# ? Apr 20, 2019 09:53

lllllllllllllllllll: Feb 28, 2010; Now the scene's lighting is perfect!

there was a time when star wars was just one of many creative hollywood movies of the eighties and i fondly remembered it, then i went from disinterest to repulsion and finally acceptance. so maybe i'll see this too.,

# ? Apr 20, 2019 10:15

Bistromatic: Oct 3, 2004; And turn the inner eye
To see its path...

QuarkJets posted:

every star wars movie made after Empire can be described as a series of missed opportunities

It's more like a fractal pattern of missed opportunities from the general premise down to individual plot points.

For example i think the transitional period between empire and new republic could have had a genuinely interesting dynamic instead of just being rebranded rebels and empire.

Under the empire the galaxy was one big command economy of interdependent worlds. Everyone relied on everyone else but only cooperated under the threat of being vaporized. With the emperor dead all that collapses and the new republic is desperately trying to transition from guerilla force to galactic government while there�s famines and shortages all around.

At the same time you have have the imperial navy with star destroyers that are very much designed to operate independently but require huge amounts of fuel, food etc to keep running. So in addition to the galactic economy being in shambles there�s a thousand plus warships, each more powerful than most system navies suddenly cut loose. They turn to piracy, mercenary work or sometimes even mutually beneficial agreements with local governments.

Hell, reading over this again the seeds for everything already exist, it was just squandered.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 12:07

Backweb: Feb 14, 2009

Bistromatic posted:

It's more like a fractal pattern of missed opportunities from the general premise down to individual plot points.

For example i think the transitional period between empire and new republic could have had a genuinely interesting dynamic instead of just being rebranded rebels and empire.

Under the empire the galaxy was one big command economy of interdependent worlds. Everyone relied on everyone else but only cooperated under the threat of being vaporized. With the emperor dead all that collapses and the new republic is desperately trying to transition from guerilla force to galactic government while there’s famines and shortages all around.

At the same time you have have the imperial navy with star destroyers that are very much designed to operate independently but require huge amounts of fuel, food etc to keep running. So in addition to the galactic economy being in shambles there’s a thousand plus warships, each more powerful than most system navies suddenly cut loose. They turn to piracy, mercenary work or sometimes even mutually beneficial agreements with local governments.

Hell, reading over this again the seeds for everything already exist, it was just squandered.

Sounds like a good Star Trek TNG plot

# ? Apr 20, 2019 13:32

Colonel Cancer: Sep 26, 2015; Tune into the fireplace channel, you absolute buffoon

In OT, space ghost good. In ST, space ghost bad! My expectations about force ghosts are subverted.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 15:07

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

I don�t know why everyone acts like Last Jedi was such a subversion of their expectations. It really delivered pretty much what you were expecting. I put it on Netflix expecting a confusing, boring mess and it delivered that on a plate.

# ? Apr 20, 2019 15:08