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Thread: Star Wars Discussion Thread (Spoilers Inside)

  1. #801
    It's OVER 5,000! striker42's Avatar
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    Zito, you miss entirely what the Star Wars movies are. First, the 3 core trilogies are the Skywalker Saga. That's literally the alternative name for them. If Rey ends up not being Luke's daughter, it disrupts the whole franchise. It's the story of one family. Suddenly having the main character not be part of that family would be like Indiana Jones 4 being centered on Marcus Brody's adventures.

    Apart from the fact that it would make the franchise disjointed, the lack of explanation of any of the mythology of the new trilogy leaves the audience very unfulfilled. Rian Johnson created huge Chekov's Gun problems. When you hang a pistol on the wall in a play, by the end of the next act that gun needs to be fired. JJ Abrams set up the mystery surrounding Rey and Snoke. Their pasts weren't written off quickly as unimportant. They were intentionally veiled.

    By killing Snoke and trying to make Rey a nobody, Johnson took the mystery and completely dismissed it. This leaves the audience feeling robbed. What's the point of setting up the mystery if you don't eventually have a reveal? It basically was Johnson laughing at the audience and saying "All of you are so stupid for thinking there was more to Rey and Snoke". You don't mock your audience like that, especially not when you're directing a pop culture film like Star Wars.

    As for killing Snoke making things more confusing, there was no explanation of Snoke. He went from mystery to deus ex machina. He was a great opportunity for a rich back story that explained the connection from the Empire to the First Order. Instead he just became a magic plot device to explain Kylo's turn to the dark side. Where he came from, how he rose to power, how he knows about the force, etc are all left unexplained which really makes the story a lot less clear.

    Luke takes control of his character and presses the attack at multiple points. He decides to join up with the Rebellion and fly against the Death Star when he could have left with Han. Luke leaves Dagobah against Yoda's orders and attacks Vader at Cloud City. Luke turns himself in on Endor to get a chance to overthrow the Emperor and turn his father back to the Light Side. Rey doesn't press the attack like this. It has made Rey a much weaker character than she should be.

    I think Luke had to die. In any story like this, the old hero has to die for the new hero to arise. Obi Wan had to die for Luke to arise. In Harry Potter, Dumbledore had to die for Harry to arise. Without the death of the old hero, the new hero relies upon the old as a crutch.

    However, the way Luke died felt pointless. The problem with Luke's death is that it happens after the tension is resolved. The Resistance had escaped and Luke dropped his force connection. The conflict is over and at that point he just chooses to die. If you're going to kill off the main character of the entire franchise, you do it in a large showing of self-sacrifice.

    Imagine if Luke had done everything he did as an illusion except he did it in person. He alone stands toe to toe against Kylo and the first order. He displays incredible power to hold off overwhelming force and then once the Resistance is away, he gives in like Obi Wan. It would be so much more impactful to have Luke stride into battle, looking to atone for his failure with Kylo, trying to save his friends, and having no intention of surviving. Much more true to the character.

    Rian Johnson's directing was a series of acknowledging what the audience wanted and then denying them that.
    Last edited by striker42; 08-14-2019 at 08:17 AM.

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  3. #802
    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. They're called the Skywalker saga, Anakin, Luke and Ben. All from the same bloodline. As far as main characters, was Anakin the main character in Episode 1? Obviously the whole trilogy follows his ark. But is he the main character. He wasn't introduced until the second act. By the time we meet Anakin we have Qui Gon and Obi Wan travelling with 2 new additions to the "party" in Jar Jar and Padme. So the main character of the film is introduced what 30 minutes in? You have no clue what Rian, JJ, and co had in mind for Episode 9. You don't. You have no idea what Ben Solo's arc winds up being, what Luke's finale will actually be, if we won't see the reintroduction of Anakin, if Rey isn't just a nobody, but instead is a reincarnation of Anakin. You have no clue, stop acting like you do.

    2. JJ didn't really set up any mystery on Rey's parentage or Snoke's origin. Especially the latter. Rey's parentage existed as a means of story telling. Keep in mind according to the stories of old, Rey considered herself a chosen one. Consider if you would, comparing it to Blade Runner 2049. When the character believes their only path to heroism is birthright, they think that birthright matters, but it doesn't. Rey will have her parentage taken care of in some manner, perhaps in Episode 9, perhaps in comics or books or TV or different films. The idea of Snoke being some form of mystery that needed to be explained in film is plain old moronic. We knew all we needed to know of Snoke. Powerful dark side user, leader of the first order. That's all that matters. Would you have been happy if they dedicated 10 minutes of film for Snoke to dialogue to Rey how he came to power? Nope that woudl be boring as ****. I'll throw 2 villains at you, Boba Fett and Emperor Palpatine. In the OT you know almost nothing of them. You don't know that BOba Fett is a clone of Mandalorian Jango Fett, you don't know that before becoming the Emperor that Palapine was the Senator from Naboo before becoming Supreme Chancellor and was trained by Darth Plagueis. Because none of that has jack squat to do with the events that were happening on film in ESB or RotJ.

    3. I don't think Johnson mocked the audience. Again, read everything I said above. If he was calling them stupid he would have had Luke **** on the idea that it mattered. That didn't happen. Rey's parentage was important to her, consider her dark mirror. Consider it's parallel to Luke's Dagobah encounter. Luke learned there that in his quest to kill Vader he needs to be careful or by killing Vader he could easily become Vader. Rey's vision is she sees countless versions of herself, which she didn't feel trapped. Her vision was basically tellingher that in her search for her identity she can rely on no one but herself, which is a great fear of hers. Rey had to that point spent the majority of her time doubting herself. Again the **** about Snoke is just fanboy BS. It doesn't matter. Expecting them to spend a lot of time on Snoke's history would have been boring. Just like Phasma, Tarkin, Fett, etc. sometimes characters backstories get fleshed out in other media. Does it matter to ESB that we know almost nothing about the bounty hunter who captures Han? Or do we trust that because Vader trusts him that he is skilled? It doesn't matter that he was in a group Aurra Sing, Bossk, and Castas, in a quest for revenge against Mace Windu? Nope that doesn't matter. It's a great story, but it doesn't matter to the events of ESB. Because like you said, it's the Skywalker saga. Characters that effect the main characters don't matter.

    4. There is no need for explanation of Snoke. Why do you feel they need it? You've complained about it countless number of times but haven't given a justified reason. There is no real reason you need to know about Snoke. I can tell you how Snoke came into power. Empire fled into unknown regions as part of the Contingency. Rae Sloane took Hux's dad and a number of others out there. Snoke grew through the ranks, almost certainly via force manipulation. As others like Palatine and Maul have done. It's something that doesn't need to be done and wouldn't be done a proper service in a 10 minute dialogue in the film. Instead we'll likely get a comic, TV show or hopefully a book series which will do his backstory justice. As far as how he knows the force, that doesn't really matter. If you watched the Clone Wars TV show you'd see that the Force was not taught by Sith or Jedi but existed. Jedia nd Sith taught more control. As far as his master could be any number of others. The sith had the rule of 2 nor did they dominate the dark side of the force. We saw that with various dark side users used by the Sith.Asajj Ventress, the Inquisitors, etc. it doesn't matter how he learned. It really doesn't. Again, only with the OT as reference, who was Palapatine's Master? What planet was he from? Who were the Sith? How did he rise to power? How did he learn about the force? It doesn't make the movie less clear. Part of movies is that you accept that things happen off screen. You don't see everything.

    Luke doesn't take control of his character. He didn't decide to join the rebellion, he was accompanying Obi Wan Kenobi on a mission to Alderaan. One he only was involved with because his Aunt and Uncle happened to buy 2 specific droids. One of which they only got because one of the other droids malfunctioned. During the process of the story Luke's reason to stay on Tatooine was destroyed as his Aunt and Uncle and their farm were destroyed. SO he had no reason to stay and instead followed the person who claims to have known his father. Again simply reacting to the plot. He then is on the Death Star where his master dies, his ride brings him to the rebel base which because of the plot of the film is under attack forcing him into service to destroy the death star. He could have left with Han, but it was no different than Rey choosing to not just leave Finn and BB8 with Han and go back to Jakku. The initiative would likely be to stay in the rebellion. But is no different than Rey's choice to not just go back to Jakku after the events of TFA. Luke left Dagobah because he was reacting to a force vision. He wasn't taking initiative. Taking intitiative would have been to reject the vision. Most of what you said about RotJ is true, but that was Luke's 3rd film. Rey hasn't had 3 films yet so don't attempt to include that. Rey has pressed the attack in the same manner as Luke. Her choice to leave Luke was because she saw Luke wasn't going to help and decided her best hope was to turn Kylo. Of course that wasn't what happened but that was more initiative than Luke showed early on in ESB or ANH.

    6. That's your opinion. Yoda and Luke died in similar manners as far as embracing the force. Wouldn't it make sense for Luke supposedly the greatest or one of the greatest Jedis of all time to go out like the other great masters, Obi Wan and Yoda. Like Obi Wan he sacrificed himself to save his disciple. Like Yoda he recognized his time was up. Luke exerted maximum effort to save his sister, and his disciple. Consider a different line from earlier in the movie. When Kylo was talking about the mental bridge with Rey, "you can't do this, the effort would kill you" we saw in RotS Palpatine using his force lightning at high power causing major and irreparable harm to him.

    7. That would have been totally moronic. Luke would have taken a full barrage from the First order and survived, it would have been stupid. It would have been beyond moronic and it would have taken you and everyone else totally out of the film as it's beyond even reasonable belief. Luke did all those things, but in a significantly more believable manner. Instead of jumping into his XWing and taking on the first order with his Laser Sword, he did the thing that the Hero is expected to do but realistically. Again, imagine if you would Vader standing before the full might of the rebellion, would they have sent a bunch of shock troopers to fight him or just overwhelmed him with fire? The answer is clear what they would have done and luke wouldn't have survived it.
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    1. This trilogy is not Ben/Kylo's story. It's Rey's story. If she's not a Skywalker, it disconnects this trilogy from the others.

    2. If Rey's past is so irrelevant and there was no mystery set up around it, why then did Kylo freak out at the mention of a girl on Jakku in The Force Awakens? There's a definite implication that Kylo knew Rey was there and so had some past experience with Rey. Why did Rey see a force vision of the Knights of Ren and Kylo killing one to save her? Why did you hear Obi Wan's voice call out to her?

    I honestly think JJ Abrams resurrects the Rey mystery in the next film. He'll have Kylo having lied to her and her really be a Skywalker or something.

    As for Snoke, the Emperor didn't need a backstory at the time of the original trilogy. There was no pre-established past that he needed to fit into. Imagine if they had done the prequels and not explained the Emperor. They just hand waved it and said "A mysterious dark side user appeared, became Vader's master, and took over." It would make no sense.

    That's where we're at now. There's an established history that this trilogy needs to link up with. Snoke was a major player being the head of the First Order and the one that turned Kylo. That there was intentional mystery surrounding him is shown by his utter lack of a back story. There was something intended there and I can't imagine Abrams is done with him.

    3. I don't expect the whole movie to be fan service but Johnson took pains to go out of his way to deny any fan service and with comments like "Take on the first order with a laser sword" is clearly acknowledging what the fans want and mocking it. He uses the absolutely useless trip to Canto Bight to make you feel guilty to supporting the Resistance (tries to make it where there are no good guys). He knows what the audience wants and not only doesn't give it to them, he wants the audience to feel bad for wanting it in the first place.

    4. Once Luke rescues Leia he's offered the chance to leave with Han. Instead he decides to jump in an X-Wing and go on a suicide mission. Luke made decisions to take the fight to the Empire from the start. Rey has been much more reactive. I think it gets better in the next movie. So far she's not been written as a strong lead.

    6. Yoda was 900. I got the feeling that the only thing holding him together was the Force. Luke is middle aged. Yoda also was not a hero. A good character, but at that point he'd never been shown doing anything heroic.

    Also, Dark Side force use degrades the user. That's what happened to the Emperor. For the light side, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. There's no precedent of light side force use killing the wielder.

    Ultimately, Luke's death was just bad story telling. You don't kill off an uber hero after the resolution of the tension. It robs their death of meaning. He succeeded, survived the encounter, and then just chose to die.

    7. Luke is supposed to be one of the most powerful Jedi ever to live, if not the most powerful. He's had decades to contemplate the force and unlock new powers. He showed an incredible power in projecting himself across the galaxy. Standing physically there and holding off the whole first order would have been no greater than his projection.

    As for Vader, watch the last 15 minutes of Rogue One and you see why everyone was terrified of him. Rebel troopers didn't even slow him down. Seeing Luke put on a display like that would have been awesome.

    Also, Luke not rushing in is entirely against his character. He immediately went on a rescue mission to save Leia when he discovered she was on the Death Star. He jumped in an X-Wing to fly against the Death Star. He went up against walkers in a little speeder. He rushed to Cloud City against orders to save his friends. He gave himself up for a chance at killing the Emperor and saving Vader. Luke would jumped in his X-Wing and flown in to save the day. It was that chance to Luke's character that upset Mark Hammil.

  5. #804
    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. You don't know that. Rey is the main protagonist, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily her story. Kylo's arc is constantly evolving. It's not like say in the OT where Vader is relatively stagnant until the final act of RotJ where he's redeemed via Luke. Kylo has been doing his own thing. If that doesn't make him a contender for main character I don't know what can.

    2.I'm not necessarily saying her past is irrelevant, what I'm saying is that it's not necessarily relevant depending on what story is being told. Again we don't know where they'll wind up at. She could be a reincarnation of Palpatine or Anakin or some **** like that. We don't know. If she is a clone or a reincarnation then her parentage (as in who raised her) doesn't matter. Shmi Skywalker is irrelevant. I hope he doesn't ressurect any mystery, I'm fine with bringing closure but I don't want Rey's parentage to be the McGuffin of episode 9. It would be a bad idea. Episode 9 should be about closure and ending storylines.

    3. Because again Luke doing what "fans want" would have been moronic. It would have been lore breaking. Kanto Bight wasn't there to make the Resistance look bad. DJ was a character with a different approach than any other introduced in the sequel trilogy. He wasn't there to make the Resistance look bad. He was there to be the scoundrel, subvert expectations, etc. you think you're getting Han Solo, and instead you're getting a true CN character.

    4. He has a chance to leave with Han but it wasn't what he was gonna do given that his childhood friend Biggs was right there and Han was to Luke an opportunistic non-hero. So it wasn't really a initiative

    5. Yoda was 900 and a species that lives that long. Luke was a human, he was 53 when he passed, that's not human middle age. Average human lifespan is about 71 years so it's hardly middle aged, especially considering the hard life luke endured, taking Force Lightning from the Emperor, severing his ties to the force, etc.

    6. There's no evidence that the Dark Side kills you. Palpatine was about 88 when he died. Vader was able to channel the darkside to survive many encounters that should have killed him.

    7. Yes it would have. There's been Force Projection shown in the star wars universe. Not as powerful as what Luke did, but it's been shown. There has not been shown though is someone being able to survive a blast collection that Luke did. Because it would be absurd. It would be beyond absurd. It would be gamechangingly stupid, Pick the dumbest Deus Ex Machina from any film and it beats that.

    Vader's finale in Rogue one was not comparable. That was what 10 or so scared rebel soldiers, not several AT-AT, AT-M6, and tie fighters firing lasers and turbo lasers at him. Luke instead did the greatest force feat we've EVER witnessed.


    For your finale
    1. He didn't go on the rescue mission after discovering Leia was on the Death Star. They were travelling to Alderaan to deliver the death star plans and it was destroyed and they were tractor beamed onto the death star where he and han went to save Leia.

    2. He went up against Walkers because it was what his squadron was doing. Hardly fool rushing in, it was what anyone in the rebellion would do, what any soldier would do. And he did do all those things but not physically, mystically. Again, Luke would have been less effective being there in person. Being there in person he would have been blown up by turbo lasers. What a fantastic death that would have been. As far as Luke and Hamill. Mark talked about it at length. And admitted that he disagreed with parts of Skywalker but not all of it. Because he didn't consider what it was that Luke could become given the direction JJ and Kasden took the character. Nothing about TLJ and more about the overall direction of the arc.
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  6. #805
    Anytime Now Frankie...
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    Yeah, but what do y'all think of that new Patrick Stewart show set in The Star Wars?

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    1. Kylo is an important character but this is not Kylo's story. The prequels were Anakin's story, not Obi Wan's. The original trilogy were Luke's story, not Han's. This trilogy is Rey's story, not Kylo's. Characters can have their own side stories, but that doesn't make them the main character. It's just a disconnect if the final trilogy of the Skywalker saga is about the journey of someone who isn't a Skywalker.

    2. I don't think Rey's parentage will be a McGuffin but it could be a big reveal. There would be a kind of symmetry if Luke's force ghost revealed to Rey that he was her father. Rey's parentage could be an excellent motivation for the character.

    3. You don't have to make Luke immediately join Rey and fly the Millennium Falcon right to Snoke's throne room. But Johnson not only took Luke from a hero that throws himself at danger to protect his friends to a miserable old hermit who wouldn't cross the street to help someone. And then he mocked fans for wanting to see Luke ride in with a laser sword and save the day. Canto Bight was a completely useless aside. The whole war profiteering thing was almost jarring by how out of place it was in the movie. Star Wars is literally a struggle of the light side versus the dark. There are good guys and bad guys. Trying to throw everyone into the same gray area just misses the whole tone of the franchise.

    4. I don't think getting into a stunt fighter and flying against a moon sized battle station is something Luke just fell into. Luke's character throughout the original trilogy is one that chooses to try to save the day. It starts with him choosing to accompany Obi Wan, it moves to him choosing to try to save Leia, he then chooses to try to destroy the Death Star, and so on. There's a defense of Rey being less this kind of hero. She's been chosen by the Force so all these strange things are happening to her. She's just trying to keep her head above water. But I was really hoping to see her embrace that in The Last Jedi. See her take control of her power and destiny. It will probably happen in Rise of Skywalker but it still feels like a missed opportunity for the Last Jedi.

    5. I would consider 53 middle aged but I'm not going to argue over semantics. Suffice to say, Yoda was at the end of his life. Luke was not.

    6. Dark side degradation is a thing. It's why dark side users eye color changes (usually to yellow). It's why Palpatine's face melted. The more you channel it the more it eats away at your body. It's usually a slow process over many years but massive channeling can cause massive degradation.

    7. We saw Kylo stop a blaster bolt in mid-air and hold it there with his mind. We saw Vader absorb Han's blaster fire with his hand like he was swatting gnats. Yoda caught force lightning with his hand. Mother Talzin used a Force bubble around herself in the Clone Wars show to deflect blaster fire. So there is precedent for force users being able to deflect energy with the force. Luke throwing up some kind of force wall that withstood the impact of the blaster fire would have been an incredibly cool use of the Force and a great display of exactly the kind of power an older, wiser Luke could command. I really don't see a defensive Force bubble of massive power to be any more extreme of a use of the Force than projecting yourself across the galaxy convincingly enough to fool another powerful Force user.

    It would not have been a deus ex machina. Luke coming in and destroying the First Order forces would have been a deus ex machina. Using every scrap of his considerable power to withstand the onslaught to buy the time necessary for the Rebels to escape would have been really cool. Luke sacrificing himself to let his protege (Rey) escape would have been excellent symmetry with the choice Obi Wan made. Note, there's a difference between symmetry and copying what happened before. Starkiller base I felt was just a rehash of the old Death Star. Luke, though a different set of choices and events, being placed in the same position as Obi Wan and making that same decision would have been excellent story telling. Johnson got really close and then fumbled on the one yard line by having Luke just choose to die after the resolution of the danger.

    Johnson could have salvaged it had he had Luke die as a result of his fight with Kylo. Either have Kylo use some kind of force ability that causes Luke to still take damage through the projection or have Luke choose to go into the Force during the fight to give one last burst of power. Letting the conflict resolve and then have Luke die made his death feel really meaningless.

    I don't think Vader's rampage was comparable to what Luke did in the Force projection or what Luke would have done had he been physically present. Luke was supposed to be a much, much more powerful force user than Vader.

    8. Ultimately, the Last Jedi (and the Force Awakens to an extent), really missed the mark with Luke's character. There's no way the Luke who never shied away from being the hero would hide away and sulk for 20 years. He might hide if he thought that only by hiding could he save his friends, but he wouldn't become the disillusioned hermit we saw.

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    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. If it was Anakin's story why was he not introduced until Act 2 of Episode 1? Really episode 1 is Qui Gon's story.

    2. I'm fine with a clean cut reveal. Just no more chasing, it should be solved quickly. I don't think she'll be Luke's kid, I cannot imagine him doing that to her knowing what finding out Vader did to him. Maybe she meets her mother and reveals something quick. Don't care. Just as long as it's not an important plot point. Shouldn't be introducing new plot points should be finishing the already strong Rey/Kylo plot that we have.

    3. Rian Johnson rolled with what was offered to him by JJ and Kasden. Luke went into exile after failing. He went somewhere where he didn't want to be found that the location of Luke Skywalker was the McGuffin of the force awakens. Equivalent to the Death Star plans of ANH. If you ran away to somewhere you didn't want to be found, then why would you jump into your xwing and save the day? Does Luke have bipolar disorder? If you don't like that Luke didn't come back, don't blame Rian, blame Kasden and JJ who wrote Luke out of the first film entirely into exile. Canto Bight wasn't useless, it introduced a few things that mattered. First that the resistance had allies, even in unlikely places.

    And as an aside, greyness in Star Wars has existed for years. I won't even touch on the OT, but let's talk about other films. The CIS are the "bad guys" in the prequels. The republic was the "good guys". The issue that the strict rules of the Jedi Order were what lead to Anakin's fall. The issue that the Republic lead to the Empire. We saw Republic Heroes like Tarkin, Yularen, Anakin, so on so forth, became Imperial leaders. Reality is that George Lucas introduced Grayness with the prequels.

    4. But you're justifying these things. Rey chose to save BB8 from the junkers. Rey chose not to sell BB8 for a relative fortune. Rey chose to run off with Finn. She chose all those things. She chose not to just leave Finn and BB8 when they left Jakku. Reality is they both chose things. I'm just playing devil's advocate. Rey chose everything, sure she seems along for the ride, that's part of the movie world.

    5. Again, you don't know if Yoda was old for his species, because we literally know nothing of Yoda's race.

    6. Deformation does not equal degradation. Palpatine lived to be very old and he used the Dark Side of the force excessively. Eye change wasn't permanent, it was more of a tell. Palpatine was no more frail than an 89 year old person and he was consumed in the darkside for 25 years or so if not more.

    7. That's all blaster fire. Not turbo lasers. So to compare, you're comparing a knife to a harpoon gun. Or a dart vs. a gun. We've never seen Vader use the force to stop his tiefighter from getting shot. So on so forth.

    Luke projected his physical manifestation, so powerful that it confused every body except likely Leia. This is a power we've never seen. We've seen some people make some general force projections onto force strong worlds. Those were still cartoonish and not really convincing like Luke. And he did this across the Galaxy. it's the most powerful force ability we've ever seen. Effectively, he was being a force ghost, without being dead. Manipulating the living force in a way we've never seen.

    8. If you dislike Luke's arc you mainly have to blame TFA. As they had luke run into exile. There's no reality where he would have run into hiding to save his friends. That doesn't make any sense. People don't go into exile for that reason.
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    1. Episode 1 just lays the groundwork for the prequel trilogy. That trilogy is the story of Anakin.

    2. There's a history between Rey and Kylo. Like I said before, he went nuts when he found out about a girl on Jakku being involved. That and the force vision of Kylo's light saber coming through the chest of the guy about to kill her makes me think Kylo is the reason Rey is on Jakku. Rey's parentage is only a piece of her mysterious backstory.

    3. I'll put some of the blame for Luke on JJ though I'd be interested to know what his plans for Luke were. I would bet it was a Luke that isolated himself for more noble reasons. Trying to keep others safe by staying away from them. Luke losing the desire to help his friends felt like a disservice to the character.

    As for the grayness, the lines of good and evil were still clear in the prequels. The Republic was more of a neutral framework that threw them all together, but there were still clearly the Sith with their machinations and the Jedi and their allies trying to uphold freedom and justice.

    George Lucas always insisted on clearly separation of good and evil because he believed the Star Wars movies were, at heart, kids movies. Look at Anakin. He's a jedi working for good and then he turns and immediately starts killing children. Lucas didn't want Anakin to stay in any gray area long.

    4. I guess my problem is that Rey never takes on the hero's mantle. That weakens her as a character and makes her victories seem like things she was forced into doing instead of things she was willing to risk her life to achieve.

    5. We don't know anything of Yoda race but the clear implications is that he was at the end of his life. He actually goes into the force as he's dying. He could barely get out "There is another Skywalker". The Force is supposed to grant light side users longer life (at least that was the case before they messed with the canon) so there is a good argument that Yoda was probably holding himself together with the Force by the end just so he could have a chance to re-establish the Jedi order.

    6. It's literally called Dark Side Degradation. The more a dark side user used the dark side, the more their physical form would degrade. That didn't mean they got feeble. They still tapped into the dark side for strength. Their physicals forms just slowly broke down.

    7. I grant you that his projection was incredibly powerful. Stopping a turbo laser with a force wall may not even be as powerful as him projecting himself that distance. I think you could have pulled off Luke being there physically and using dazzling displays of power to hold off the First Order before eventually making the choice Obi Wan made and sacrificing himself.

    8. Luke could absolutely have run into hiding to save his friends. We know Kylo was interested in finding Luke. If Luke felt that being around Han or Leia would draw Kylo to them and that he could never bring himself to kill Kylo, he could have justified running and hiding. It's not a great justification but it's more true to Luke than what Johnson dropped on us.

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    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. Anakin had less screen time than QUi Gon in TPM. That's just the reality. You can talk about the trilogy, but I would still argue otherwise. Part of my issue with the prequels is that they don't have a clear main character.

    2. Again, I'm fine with there being some background, as long as it's quick and done with. No major plot points, no major dialogue.

    3. His plans vs. logical story progression are a few things. Luke went into hiding according to Han in TFA because as he said "he walked away from everything" walking away from everything isn't protecting someone it's going into exile. Consider if you would Yoda on Dagobah. With the exception that Yoda didn't disconnect himself from the Force.

    4. There may be some aspects of that, but I think that comes from Rey's inherent uncertainty in herself. She shows up as a hero at the end of TLJ, between her stand with Kylo, her and Chewie coming in to save the rebellion as they fight off a Tie squadron then using her connection with the force to save her friends.

    5. It can offer longer life, but that has to do with a number of factors. Most of those light side users probably never took multiple full force force lightnign hits from a prime level Sith Lord.

    6. That's not a real thing, it was a legends thing but that was clearly absurd considering Palpatine's age before passing and he was feeble but no more feeble than a normal 89 year old.

    7. You can think that, I don't believe it's remotely believable given the powers we've seen. It would be akin to seeing Starkiller pull a destroyer from the outer atmosphere. It would be too far of a leap. Consider again, the scale. Popping up a forcewall capable of a constant barrage would be unbelievable.

    8. Kylo wasn't interested in finding Luke, Snoke was, and Leia wasn't exactly hiding as the leader of the Resistance. Being true to Luke is deceptive. What we've seen in canon from Luke is about 4 years of his life, there was 30 years old luke's life. You're ignoring a large chunk of his life including his character development because of what he was when he was 20. When I was 21 I used to go out drinking until 3 AM then work the next day. I don't do that **** anymore and I'm only 31. Don't ignore physical and developmental changes that could happen.
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    1. Anakin was a kid in Episode I with no Force training. There was a limit on how much he could carry the plot. Also, they were working under child labor laws so it was probably easier to limit his use. In any event, Episode I is largely about laying the groundwork for Anakin's story. Introducing him, his mom, his love interest, and setting up his training.

    The prequels are Anakin's story. All the other major characters are defined by their relationship with Anakin. Obi Wan's his teach, Padme's his love interest, the Emperor is trying to turn him, etc.

    2. It will most likely be a major point in the story. JJ Abrams is a sucker for his stories having a mystery and mythology. I don't know if they'll spend a ton of time on it because you don't need to spend much time. Think about ESB, Vader being revealed as Luke's father is only a fraction of the movie.

    I think her backstory, like Luke's, will be there mostly as motivation for the character's decisions.

    3. Luke going into hiding to protect his friends would have looked a lot like walking away from everything to them. If he wasn't able to get them to understand why he was doing it (and we're talking about mystical force reasons that Han has demonstrated he can't understand) or if he didn't try to explain, they would see him going into hiding as him walking away.

    Yoda didn't quit the world. He went into hiding to preserve the Jedi. He knew there would come a day when he would be needed to train the next generation of Jedi and so he hid from Vader and the Emperor to be able to do that.

    4. I can see what you're saying about the end of the Last Jedi. It still doesn't feel like she's embracing the role of the hero. Maybe it's that she's at so many points has been in danger and been obviously terrified that even when she does something heroic, it feels like she's desperately just trying to survive. One thing we really never see from Luke is fear.

    It's more realistic to make Rey terrified at what's going on, but in a universe where Luke exists, it makes her look like a weaker hero by comparison.

    5. Few force users are more powerful than Yoda too. Nothing is explicit either way, but considering he was pretty much okay before getting into that bed it really feels like he was sustaining himself with the force. When he lets go of his grip, he starts rapidly dying. That's always been my take.

    6. I think Dark Side degradation is still a thing to some degree. It clearly affects the wielder as we see eye color change and dark side users generally don't look healthy (see Asajj Ventress).

    I think the Emperor is the key case. When he wielded that force lightning against Mace Windu it drastically transformed him. He degraded extremely rapidly. I'm not sure if that was because he was channeling a huge amount of the Dark Side which degraded him or if Mace was reflecting the lightning back on him which caused the problem. Either way, he was exposed to massive amounts of Dark Side energy and that severely harmed his body.

    That being said, Dark Side Degradation didn't necessarily enfeeble the user or shorten their life as they still drew strength from the force. It was more that you would bear outer scars of the inner deformity of your soul and that too massive of a use of it could kill you.

    7. I always thought Starkiller pulling the Star Destroyer out of orbit was silly. But deflecting shots from an AT-AT isn't on that level. I honestly think Luke projecting himself with that degree of realism (remember the dice) would be much harder. Interstellar distances are insanely vast. Deflecting a barrage would require less energy than that. Luke pouring everything he has into holding off the attack knowing he doesn't have to save anything for his own survival would be enough justification for it.

    8. Kylo was interested in finding him because Snoke was. Luke knows that his presence can be detected by another force user at close enough range (see shuttle flying past the Executor). It would be an easy step to have Luke hide himself to keep his friends safe. I think Luke hiding at all is a bad move that's not true to the character but hiding to save his friends would be a better justification.

    Luke could have changed over the years between ROTJ and TFA, however, taking the protagonist from the original trilogy and making such a drastic off camera change to his personality is a bad move.

    9. If we want to get into Deus Ex Machinas, Rian Johnson introduced one that causes a huge problem. He destroyed the largest ship we've ever seen by having another ship go to hyperspace and crash into it. If that was always a possibility, why not do that every time? Just buy up a bunch of freighters, rig them with droid pilots, and crash them into enemy capital ships.

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    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. Your point is basically that the OT is Anakin's but the issue is that Episode 1 Anakin is just a bystander who doesn't affect the plot at all. It's not his story, setting the plate has nothing to do to counter your point that this Trilogy couldn't be about Kylo.

    2. Again, fine with it being short. I don't think it's needed personally but if it happens keep it short and simple, maybe a quick glimpse or realization.

    3. That's a very loose exposition on why Yoda went into Exile. Yoda himself said in Revenge of the Sith "Into exile I must go. Failed, I have." Novelization IIRC says he went into exile because he had been training the Jedi for years to fight the Sith with lightsabers and never prepared to fight the Sith manipulating politics as they did. As far as Luke goes, again, you don't just vanish without a trace not contacting your force sensitive sister, without a trace to protect someone. Again, you can write it in that way but it isn't logical.

    4. We see fear from Luke many times, don't confuse making daring moves with absence of fear. Luke very much was afraid after his Dark Side cave vision. He was very much afraid when he attacked Vader after he probed Luke's feelings to identify Leia. Don't confuse fear with action. In fact fear can drive a plot forward. Fear of failure, fear of loss, etc.

    5. That's a take. Again we don't know. There's no evidence that the force can harm or hurt you. What we know factually is that Palpatine was living long past his average life span. So the idea that the Darkside wrecks you is not the ultimate solid. Also again, Vader basically was enveloped in the dark side. It's the main reason he died in the end. The force lightning was a part but in canon we know that basically Vader's suit was built to harm him all the time and force him to channel the dark side.

    6. Asajj Ventress didn't look unhealthy, Darth Maul didn't look unhealthy. She didn't look any different than her night sister brethren. She didn't change that much from being a Jedi Padawan to being a dark side apprentice. She never got the yellow eyes. Again, it's an inconsistancy. There is no true full canon as to why certain people have sith eyes and others don't. Why the sometimes subside and other times do not. Kylo and Snoke never had sith eyes.

    7. But there are other issue implications to what you're saying. First being the Luke doing so would lead to a number of things that are wrong. Again, we haven't seen anyone be able to stop a turbo laser. The implication is that Vader then could have flown around with a protective bubble around his Tie and wrecked everything. The projection is insanely powerful, but believable. A massive force wall would be something that someone would have to explain why no one did it. Using a projection that weakened Luke to his deathbed is clearly a deterrent.

    8. The reality is that Vader and Luke had a bond. One that Luke was attempting to use to turn Vader and Vader was attempting to use to turn Luke. One could argue that you probably could sever that connection to hide your intent. We saw in canon times that Maul was around Qui Gon and he wasn't sensed. And tons of other examples in the Rebels TV show. IIRC no one knew Dooku was Tyrannus for a really long time. And it's a bad move in your opinion. I'd say it's likely a move JJ and Kasden did to attempt to mirror Vader and Kenobi from the prequels a bit.

    9. We've seen kamikazes destroy capital ships. Return of the Jedi, the A wing crashing into the deck of the Executor taking out the super star destroyer. As far as why no one had done it before, lots of reasons. For starters, clean shot, the reality was that the Supremacy was not focused, it was targetting the remains of the rebels with a boasting victory. They didn't realize what was happening until way too late. Their leadership wasn't present. Snoke and Ren were in his throne room, Hux was attempting to execute Finn and Rose. They assumed the ship was attempting to jump to distract them and were taken by surprise. If they weren't arrogant in their victory they almost certainly could have disabled the ship before it did this. Second is the clean shot aspect. Typically in combat there's lots of things in the way. Imagine taking your capital ship aiming towards this thing and instead hitting a tie fighter. That's a huge net loss. Or a barrage of Turbo lasers. Again we need to consider the things around the scenario.
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    1. The problem with the idea that this could be Kylo's story is the presence of Rey as the protagonist. Rey's story is the central thread of the first two movies. Even if Kylo flips back to the light side, his story is still secondary to Rey's. It would be monumentally bad film making to have your primary protagonist through two movies have her story line moved to the back seat and have the antagonist become the main character.

    2. Yoda going into exile because he failed makes zero sense. He was forced into exile because he would be hunted by the Empire. If he didn't have a very good reason to stay alive he would have continued fighting in some way. He had allies. Even the planet he went to was one that was perfectly suited to hide a powerful Jedi from detection. It wasn't a self-imposed punishment, it was about the survival of the Jedi.

    3. Luke's fear is never for his own survival. At the cave, he's terrified at the idea of becoming Vader. In ROTJ he's afraid for the life of Leia. That's classic Luke. Compare that with Rey who is running on pure terror a lot of the time. More realistic but it makes her an inferior hero when compared with Luke.

    4. Dark side being corrupting and destructive also fits everything we know about it. Even locations strong in the Dark Side are corrupted. So when we see Palpatine channeling more Dark Side power than anyone else we've ever seen in a desperate attempt to overcome Mace Windu, and he essentially melts, it's a fair conclusion that the Dark Side degrades. This doesn't mean it would shorten the Emperor's lifespan as there's also strong evidence that the Force can sustain a Force user when they would otherwise die. This is all academic though.

    5. All the Nightsisters look unhealthy. All gaunt and skeletal with sunken eyes. Maybe that's just their species but they don't look healthy. Darth Maul and Savage Opress both look starkly different than other members of their species. The Dark Side channeled into them warped their forms into something abominable.

    The real reason for all of this is the literary device of a physical flaw reflecting a flaw of the soul. Think Long John Silver and Ahab both missing legs or any number of villains missing eyes. You have to clearly show that these characters are evil.

    6. The Force wall could be explained two ways, first, no other Jedi in history was powerful enough to do it. Luke has been established as supremely powerful. More powerful than even Vader. Second, the same reasoning could be used that you use for the projection. It's draining. A Jedi trying to survive would never weaken themselves that much. One who is sacrificing himself would likely be able to perform some astonishing feats that leave them completely drained.

    7. I've not watched Rebels so I don't know how they used hiding their Force presence. In the movies it's only ever done by Dark Side users. Luke also may have struggled hiding himself from his nephew especially when, had he hung around with Han or Leia, his nephew had a good idea where to look.

    They definitely tried to have Luke mirror Obi Wan in running into exile. I just think the motivations could have been more consistent with the character.

    8. The A wing was only able to get through against the Executor because their shield generator was destroyed. They specifically show it being blown up and have Admiral Piett make a comment about not wanting anything to get through. There's nothing like that. The Supremacy was essentially unscathed and was completely destroyed by one vessel.

    You're talking about one shotting the largest capital ship ever created. If that was possible, there would be entire strategies built around it. You'd have people equipping asteroids with hyper drives. There would be fleets of kamakazi ships built to achieve this. You'd have hyperspace weapons designed.

    It would have been a better move to have Rey be the hero. Have her find a box of thermal detonators and leave them ticking somewhere vital. It makes Rey a better hero and doesn't create a problem within the world. Sabotage is always a danger.

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    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. We see Kylo before we see anyone else. The main argument being that his actions drive the story forward. Taking Poe set in motion Finn's escape and set the whole plot in motion. Not to say they will or they won't move the game to Kylo, but this trilogy can still be about him even if he's not the film's main protagonist. Consider the film seven, or The Lord of the Rings. Frodo is the main protagonist of Lord of the Rings, but the story isn't really about him, it's about the Ring. So perhaps there's a different direction they could take it. Rise of Skywalker implies some form of Skywalker connection, and maybe the connection to the Skywalkers is the continuations of Luke's legacy. We don't know.

    2. It was a self imposed exile. He had "reasons" to do it. But he chose to go into exile, same with Obi Wan. He could have continued to fight, defeat Palpatine, etc. but he chose to hide because he knew that he had failed. Again I quoted the film. As far as hiding on Dagobah, you're right, it was chosen because of its strong connection to the force.

    3. That's your interpretation of their fear. Just one.

    4. Well it is all academic because we don't know. As far as why Palpatine changed, if you recall he changed when his force lightning was deflected back to him from Windu's lightsaber. Not because he used force lightning. Dooku used force lightning countless number of times and never had sith eyes or became deformed or disfigured.

    5. Looking evil and dark side degeneration mean nothing. Zabrak's are also not really evil, Maul was a Zabrak of course. But typically Zabrak's fought on the side of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. It's infact a common throng of star wars, that the monstrous looking beings are often not evil.

    6. That's only part of the disbelief. Again how does he get to Krait or any other planet to have that kind of death scene. You could argue he could have done it on the Supremacy to destroy it, but that would be very anti-Jedi.

    7. Obi Wan went into exile to protect Luke. He watching over him and eventually being ready to train him. He had the most direct exile path. Though also the most moronic, but that's a discussion for another thread about poor choices Lucas made in the prequels.

    8. Correct the shields were down, but we saw an awing take down a huge section of the Super Star Destroyer just at travel speed. Extrapolate that and go from there. We don't know the shield situation of the Supremacy. Maybe their shields were down to a minimum to conserve fuel since the Resistance wasn't attacking in return. We plain don't know.

    We're talking about a capital ship taking out a capital ship. The Raddus is huge. 3 KM long going against the supremacy being 13KM deep. You're talking about putting asteroids or small ships to take out capital ships. To use a comparison. you're talking about launching a baseball from a cannon and expecting the same result as a cannon ball.

    Anyway, Rey could have destroyed the Supremacy, but that would have been the far less symbolic gesture.
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    1. Kylo is a major character but not the main character. We meet Leia before we meet Luke and it was her theft of the Death Star plans that set the story in motion. However, the original trilogy is not a story of Leia, it's Luke's story.

    Rey is central point around which all the other storylines orbit. Other characters' roles in the movie are defined by their relationship with Rey. Han is essentially Rey's guide and protector in the first film. It is through Rey's actions that Luke is redeemed and brought out of hiding in the second film. Kylo has that connection with Rey and clearly has taken a great interest in her. There are side plots but the other characters are defined by their relationship with Rey.

    They might not make Rey a Skywalker. If they don't, it undercuts this being the Skywalker Saga.

    2. They admitted failure to stop the Emperor. However, simply failing isn't a reason to go into exile. Why did they choose to hide instead of trying to rally support and challenge the Emperor again? There was something preferable about going into exile. It think Yoda knew what Luke represented. The hope for the future. Yoda knew their failure made fighting futile but hiding and waiting for Luke to come into his power meant another chance.

    3. It's my interpretation of their fear but it fits the characters. Luke is never really shown to fear for his own life. He throws himself into incredibly dangerous situations without a second thought. It's more of the classic action hero than the more complicated and realistic her Rey is. However, both being in the same universe makes Rey look weaker. I'm hoping they rectify this and have Rey take control of her destiny in this last movie.

    4. True. But Force lightning was used against other characters at many points and none of them ever exhibited even the start of the deformation that Palpatine experienced. I think no matter what the interpretation, it's clear Palpatine was channeling an unprecedented amount of Dark Side power in a desperate attempt to kill Mace Windu and save his life. Something about that level of power (either using it or being exposed to it), caused an extreme transformation in Palpatine.

    I'm more of the side that it was the channeling of the power and that a large amount of the energy was absorbed by Mace Windu's lightsaber (they can do this as Obi Wan showed fighting Duku) instead of being reflected back on Palpatine. Considering the amount of power being channeled and how destructive Force lightning is shown to be, if everything was reflected back on Palpatine it should have killed him.

    Ultimately I think we're arguing over a poor attempt to fix the continuity problem of how Palpatine looked hiding his Sith nature and how he looked in the original trilogy.

    5. It wasn't that their race was naturally monstrous. The Nightsisters transformed them. At least they did that with Opress. He took on a much more monstrous appearance.

    6. It was established that Luke had his X-wing. You see it under water. That was put there to make us think his projection was real. He had to have a way to get there.

    7. You would think Obi Wan would have been discovered fairly easily. He wasn't exactly hiding well. It wasn't a great choice of Lucas in linking the prequels to the original trilogy.

    8. I agree that ramming at lightspeed makes physics sense. The amount of energy released would be enormous. It just presents world building problems. If ramming at lightspeed was possible and this is a galaxy where hyperspace travel has been used for thousands of years, why don't we have hyperspace weapons?

    And asteroid or large freighter might not be able to take out a ship like the Supremacy but they could easily take out a Star Destroyer. There just needed to be a blanket rule that it wasn't possible.

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    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. The issue with your point about other characters revolving around their relationship with Rey is that there is no relationship with Rey and Poe for basically 2 movies. Poe is one of the major heroes. And again I would argue in some ways Kylo influences more choices than Rey does. Kylo gives the command to kill the village which is almost certainly the straw that breaks the back of Finn leaving. Kylo chooses to kidnap Poe and keep him around, eventually finding from him that BB8 has the location of Skywalker. Kylo launches the search which leads to Rey and Finn's escape from Jakku. Kylo chooses to give up the search for BB8 to take Rey instead and in the process awakening her full force potential.

    2.I explained why he went into exile. Sure there was the Luke and Leia hope, but there's no knowing that nothing wouldn't have happened to them.

    3. Again, I disagree as I think Rey takes control of her destiny. And I think it's more interesting in a character arc. Rey goes from someone who's waiting and hoping for her life to change to affecting the change. Her choice to go to rescue Kylo is something Luke didn't do until he was a full Jedi Knight. It shows a selflessness that only the best heroes have.

    4. We saw that the lightning was reflected on Palpatine, the evidence is on the screen you see Palpatine getting violently shocked with electricity. One of 2 things are possible, the Lightning did it, or he was disguising himself and this broke his disguise. If merely channelling this did this to him why did DOoku never turn when there were countless examples of him doing it in film and on TV. Correct that the sheer volume of it caused the change but I think Palpatine did that on purpose, to make the jedi out to be villains in the eyes of Anakin and the republic by continuing to use his force lightning even after it was clear Windu could deflect it.

    5 He took on a more robust form wth longer horns. It wasn't like he changed that drastically. Zabraks were always supposed to look monstery of sorts. Again consider the OT, the Empire was almost entirely made up of Humans. Rebellion comes up from a number of places. Star Wars was built around the idea of don't believe everything you see.

    6. Luke sunk his X-Wing, you think that after years under water it would be flyable?

    7. We've seen small objects do this before. It's hardly lore breaking. We saw Phoenix Nest Ram into an Indicator Class Star Destroyer.

    As far as why they don't do this more. Cost I'm assuming is the main reason. Hyperdrives aren't expressly cheap, a known reason why Thrawn's Defender program didn't get full backing was cost as it was at war with a project like "Star Dust" that never let his program dominate the empire and replace the existing Fighters with Defenders.
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    1. Poe is just used as the audience's point of view to develop the underlying world. You need to develop the greater conflict between the Resistance and the First Order. That's where Poe comes in. It's ultimately a side story.

    Kylo has a huge impact on the world. He's the primary villain. The villain has to set up the conflict.

    2. Ultimately their going into exile was poorly explained at the end of the prequels. My take was always they were going into hiding to wait for the Skywalker children to give them their next chance.

    3. Rey has consistently been swept along by the current and reacted. Her attempt to go rescue Kylo was probably the only initiative she's shown and even that was a reaction to her strange connection with Kylo.

    If this was an anthology series or if it was a completely different universe, I have no problem with Rey's character. But the central Star Wars series has been a series with strong, virtually fearless heroes. So the decisions that they took with Rey make her seem weak by comparison.

    4. The problem we're running into here is that there are no other data points. No one either using or being hit by force lightning ever experienced this. So something about this use was different. To me it seems to be a volume thing. Either he channeled so much more or was hit by so much more (he was definitely hit but by how much we don't know) that it did this unique thing.

    Again, the real reason was connecting his appearance in the original trilogy to the way he looked while hiding his Sith nature. If he hadn't been disfigured in the original trilogy, no disfigurement happens in that scene.

    As for the possibility of a disguise being destroyed, there's no real evidence or mention of that. Palpatine had a long career and was presumably known on Naboo his entire life. So this wasn't some innate appearance that was being revealed.

    As for Duku never transforming, he was a much weaker Force user than the Emperor and fell to the Dark Side relatively late in life. Even if Dark Side degradation is a thing, it's doubtful Duku ever channeled enough to have much impact.

    Ultimately, I think the explanation of that much Dark Side energy corrupting and disfiguring the Emperor's physical form fits the best. Either by channeling that much or being hit with that much.

    5. Press became much larger, his horns grew out, his eye color changed, his face got more sinister, etc.

    Lucas believed Star Wars was ultimately for kids. So he strove to make Dark Side users appear as evil as possible to help keep kids from being confused about whether someone was a bad guy.

    6. X-Wing's are clearly capable of being sealed tight and we have no baseline of what years in the water would do to it. This is a ship the size of a fighter plane capable of traveling faster than light. A few feet of water isn't necessarily a big deal.

    7. Ramming at conventional speeds is well established. A Start Destroyer's bridge was hit by an asteroid in ESB, the A-Wing taking down the Executor, etc.

    Ramming at light speed is different. A ship can go from out of range to destroying you before you have time to react.

    If you're traveling at the speed of light, a single speck of dust hitting you will explode with the force of a nuke. That's the amount of energy light speed travel requires. A single X-wing going to light speed could probably have vaporized the entire Death Star. That's just the physics of it.

    So that being such an impossibility that no one ever considered it was probably the right choice.

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    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. Sorry but you're wrong. Finn is there to be the eyes of the Audience. Poe is there to be the Han Solo of the story, the dashing daring rogue who makes risky plays.

    Compare it to the OT, what arc did Vader have? It wasn't much of one, it was to be the villain then turned at the end.

    2. That was probably part of their plan, but they didn't just do it because of waiting for Luke and Leia, they did it because they failed. Just like Luke did.

    3. The issue with that ideal is that Lucas set up in the prequels that the strong, brash, passionate, hero can lead to Vader. So of course they had to change some things with the new hero. Add in that this is being written by people who have much more writing skills than Lucas.

    4. You're right, the issue is largely no collection of data. It seems like a shoehorn by Lucas to explain how this scary villain became the emperor. And he went with this. But I think based on all our evidence, we've seen Dooku channel a lot of force lightning, we've seen Palpatine channel more force lightning, we've seen people hit by force lightning who haven't turned. Luke being the finest example of that. But there is probably a counter point that Lucas would make that because Luke was in the light being hit by force lightning his body was naturally shielded as opposed to palpatine who was not shielded or something.

    5. But we're talking about the race and darkside degeneration. We saw no evidence of Asaaj VEntress receiving darkside degeneration. Consider a non-force sensitive Zabrak,



    Looks scary, looks kind of evil. But Sugi was very much a Han Solo-esque bounty hunter. And aside from the horns doesn't look that much different than Ventress.

    6. Water is the universal solvent. I'm guessing it wouldn't take long before the water to wreck the XWing, Fuel Lines would erode, metal would rust, the fuel would leak, any number of things could cause damage to the xwing and make it no longer flyable. I mean it could be recoverable, but not likely by someone working on an island with no tools.

    7. You're right we don't know all this stuff, including strength of deflector shields, etc.

    And desperation is a thing that breeds invention. I'd comp it to the destruction of the Empire in Empire's End. No one else thought of drilling through the mantle of the planet and throwing in sith artifacts to destabilize a planet, but it's a really cool plot point and idea of things being all over the place.
    Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg

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    It's OVER 5,000! striker42's Avatar
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    1. Poe is a huge POV character in Last Jedi. All the stuff that happens on board the Resistance ships is being told through his POV. It was actually another example of Johnson making the audience feel silly by rooting for Poe when he was in the wrong.

    As for Vader vs. Kylo, they serve the same purpose in creating the conflict. The difference is they're using more interpersonal relationships and contact to set up the conflict with Kylo. It's a move I don't mind as it creates a villain with more depth. Still, it's a villain.

    If they didn't have Rey in the films then I think you could make an argument that this is a story of Kylo's redemption. The first trilogy was Vader's fall into darkness and the last trilogy is Kylo's rise from it. It has nice symmetry. However, Rey is the protagonist. It's her story.

    2. Yeah, their failure left them with limited options. Going into hiding and waiting for another chance to arise was probably the best bet. It could have been better explained but then again, you don't want a movie stretching on half an hour after the resolution of the action.

    3. And I think we've reached the heart of the problem. This trilogy is being written by other people. People trying to make a more complicated story with deeper characters. But that's not what the central movies are. They're a more simple, straight forward struggle of good against evil.

    The best analogy I've heard is that you're going to McDonalds, you order a Big Mac, and they give you spaghetti. It doesn't matter how good the spaghetti is, you wanted a Big Mac. The central movies of Star Wars are Big Macs.

    4. Interesting theory about light side shielding from deformations. It fits the facts as well as any theory.

    5. Ventress had the dark, sunken eyes and pale complexion that the Nightsisters all shared. Though that could be an affectation and not a

    6. Realistically, it would be hard to preserve an X-wing underwater for years. However, the suspension of disbelief about the laws of physics in this universe could easily cover this.

    7. Ramming at the speed of light is too obvious for it to have just gone unrealized for thousands of years. Why build a planet destroying space station when you could just ram an old capital ship at light speed into a planet. It would destroy it just as surely.

    A hand waving explanation about the gravitational pull of even capital ships being able to destabilize light speed travel and knock you out of hyperspace keeps that hole from opening up.

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    I'll add this to 7. You could have achieved the same sacrifice with a little more work on plot and a conventional speed ramming of the supremacy. A kamakazi dive into a Supremacy with shields disabled by Rey is just as dramatic and doesn't cause the issues of light speed ramming.

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    Connoisseur of Minors zitothebrave's Avatar
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    1. Poe is a POV character, just like Han Solo. But he's not the audience POV, that is Finn, Finn is the outsider.

    2. Well I could have remedied that a lot easier, but having no TPM, episode 1 is the clone wars, episode 2 is the finale of the clone wars, episode 3 is the Jedi purge. But Lucas didn't want to do that.

    3. Well they are and they aren't. Empire is incredibly complex, and you can see a lot of Empire's writing in TFA.

    4. I mean we have no clue, the reality is do we look at the facts we have and connect dots or just guess. WE know only limited facts unfortunately.

    5. There's a very likely reason she had a similar appearance, that is likely because of formal makeup/tribal work.

    6. They could, but it would be stupid and unnecessary.

    7. The issue with a planet is density. While the supremacy is large, it is mostly hollow, as opposed to a planet which would be very solid. Consider sinking a ship vs. blowing up a boulder.

    Anyway as far as why, it's been discussed before there's lots of risks of hyperspace travel. And they typically want to avoid these risks. This was a bit of a perfect storm of unpreparedness meeting desperation. I'd give you a bit from Thrawn that I'm reading about how quickly a destroyer can disable a ship's hyperdrive. It wouldn't be hard to imagine that a destroyer couldn't just wreck the **** out of a ship attempting to go into hyperspace.
    Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg

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