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Star Wars Episode IX

Started by JOE SOAP, 10 July, 2018, 01:50:53 AM

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Tiplodocus

No, she says it. As they are running from the TIE fighters, Finn shouts "We need a pilot!" and Rey replies "We've got one". It's as much as Luke got.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

TordelBack

Yep. We see her pilot doll in her AT-AT home, and she daydreams in an X-Wing helmet, and earlier looks wistfully at a departing vessel, so her interest in flight is well set up.  It's also obvious from subsequent dialogue with Han that she had experience with starships working for Plutt, just that she never flew offworld before. 

A bigger leap might be Finn suddenly flying a ski-speeder into battle in TLJ, but in fact his ability with groundcraft was lost to a deleted scene from TFA (the snowspeeder scene that also explains what's going on with Poe's jacket constantly switching owners on Starkiller base).

JOE SOAP

Quote from: Tiplodocus on 15 December, 2019, 04:14:53 PM
No, she says it. As they are running from the TIE fighters, Finn shouts "We need a pilot!" and Rey replies "We've got one". It's as much as Luke got.

Star Wars has always functioned on character short-cuts (Han always takes the short-cut) and ellipses between films, and I don't have a huge problem with Rey being a good pilot on a planet of junk ships, but what I believe blackmocco is implying is that there was a certain amount of dramatic development time allowed to sit between Luke mentioning the T-16 and then jumping into an X-Wing – there was build-up whereas JJA just goes for the direct hit. Again I don't have a huge problem with Rey's abilities. It's still a leap for Luke going from light aircraft to ace fighter-pilot but it was given audience time to render and be vague enough while the audience gets to know the character.

The more pertinent issue it could be argued is Rey having force knowledge after Kylo's interrogation – that's the 'force awakens' part that's been left to hang somewhat till the last film, apparently. I'm not in love with that kind of mystery element, or it being left so long for an answer but it is part of the overall theme, and JJ gonna JJ.




blackmocco

#468
Quote from: Tiplodocus on 15 December, 2019, 04:14:53 PM
No, she says it. As they are running from the TIE fighters, Finn shouts "We need a pilot!" and Rey replies "We've got one". It's as much as Luke got.

Ehh. I mean, yeah, she says it but that's just because Abrams isn't nuanced enough to lay the groundwork. He needs her to be a fucking awesome star pilot because he needs his dogfight, so the best he can give us is her literally telling us, the audience, just a hair short of winking at the camera.

We know Luke wants to leave Tatooine to join the academy. We see him play with his T-16 model. Kenobi says he's heard Luke's quite a pilot. All the signposting about Luke's mysterious father at least gives some weight to the notion there's something special about him and his place in the story. By contrast, Rey gets a helmet, which could honestly mean anything on a planet littered with wrecked spacecraft (I assumed she just wore it as a hat!)  - and she looks at spacecraft leaving Jakku (which I always took to mean she was being reminded of her parents leaving, not that she dreamed of being a pilot). In all fairness, I assumed by the time we got to TLJ, they'd have put some meat on Ray's bones as a character, but they actually do less and make her a literal nobody, making her force skills even more unexplainable (no doubt soon to be revised again in the new one).

I know, I know, it's only Star Wars and yes, pretty much all of the movies - even the ones I still love - have giant plotholes in them, but in the 21st century one would hope even a Star Wars movie would try and do some homework.
"...and it was here in this blighted place, he learned to live again."

www.BLACKMOCCO.com
www.BLACKMOCCO.blogspot.com

TordelBack

Quote from: blackmocco on 15 December, 2019, 07:46:48 PM
We know Luke wants to leave Tatooine to join the academy. We see him play with his T-16 model. Kenobi says he's heard Luke's quite a pilot. All the signposting about Luke's mysterious father at least gives some weight to the notion there's something special about him and his place in the story.

While I think there's sufficient notice given of Rey's potential abilities (added to the fact that she botches the Falcon's takeoff and skids about the place for a bit, and her winning tactic isn't to outfly the TIEs but to use the terrain she knows from being a scavenger and let Finn pick them off), I do agree that the Luke thing is far better set up - with both Ben's off-screen informant and Biggs vouching for his skills at either end of the movie in addition to his own boasting.

radiator

I agree with blackmocco, its shoddy writing.

the line where rey breathlessly 'explains' why she's able to pilot a ship like the falcon comes across as so shoehorned-in and inelegant to me that its almost humourous - a quick script band aid applied over a pretty gaping plot discrepancy.

It ties in to a bigger problem I have with her characterisation in general. ie If she's as capable and self-possessed as we're being told, why on Earth (Jakku?) wouldn't she just hotwire the nearest spaceship and escape this life of drudgery? Or at least take work as a pilot? Its established in earlier films that being a starship pilot is a marketable skill, and yet shes stuck being a lowly scavenger? I know there's this contrivance where they say she's 'waiting for her parents to come back', but that seems totally at odds with who she is. The character they're showing us wouldn't be so passive if she has the means of escape right at her fingertips. She'd go off and FIND the parents, surely? Like, how long's she gonna wait? Again, the explanation we're given seems like a slightly awkward fix that doesn't really ring true or make a lot of sense in context, to me at least.

I have similar issues with Finn. He seems to flip between cowardly comic relief or selfless hero depending and what the script says per given scene, and his overall chipper, cheeky demeanour doesn't square at all with his stated backstory of childhood trauma and forced conscription.

Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are tremendous actors, but they deserved characters that were a bit more fully fleshed out. As it is, the script feels really half baked and they just about get by on charisma.

Oh, and while we're at it; as much as I love Oscar Isaac, Poe should have stayed dead after the tie fighter crash, as per the original script. As a character, he works much better as a misdirect. His resurrection later on in the film makes no sense (again, its hand waved with a really clumsy line of dialogue), he feels extraneous, and his continued presence (imo) detracts from Finn's arc, that of trying to impersonate and take the mantle of a genuine hero who died saving him.

The wishy washy characterisation of the three leads is the sequel trilogies biggest weakness imo.

You know who Han is in the first five minutes of meeting him, whereas two entire films in I still don't feel like I have a handle on any of the new cast, with the exception of Kylo Ren.

blackmocco

Quote from: radiator on 15 December, 2019, 10:41:15 PM
I agree with blackmocco, its shoddy writing.

the line where rey breathlessly 'explains' why she's able to pilot a ship like the falcon comes across as so shoehorned-in and inelegant to me that its almost humourous - a quick script band aid applied over a pretty gaping plot discrepancy.

It ties in to a bigger problem I have with her characterisation in general. ie If she's as capable and self-possessed as we're being told, why on Earth (Jakku?) wouldn't she just hotwire the nearest spaceship and escape this life of drudgery? Or at least take work as a pilot? Its established in earlier films that being a starship pilot is a marketable skill, and yet shes stuck being a lowly scavenger? I know there's this contrivance where they say she's 'waiting for her parents to come back', but that seems totally at odds with who she is. The character they're showing us wouldn't be so passive if she has the means of escape right at her fingertips. She'd go off and FIND the parents, surely? Like, how long's she gonna wait? Again, the explanation we're given seems like a slightly awkward fix that doesn't really ring true or make a lot of sense in context, to me at least.

I have similar issues with Finn. He seems to flip between cowardly comic relief or selfless hero depending and what the script says per given scene, and his overall chipper, cheeky demeanour doesn't square at all with his stated backstory of childhood trauma and forced conscription.

Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are tremendous actors, but they deserved characters that were a bit more fully fleshed out. As it is, the script feels really half baked and they just about get by on charisma.

Oh, and while we're at it; as much as I love Oscar Isaac, Poe should have stayed dead after the tie fighter crash, as per the original script. As a character, he works much better as a misdirect. His resurrection later on in the film makes no sense (again, its hand waved with a really clumsy line of dialogue), he feels extraneous, and his continued presence (imo) detracts from Finn's arc, that of trying to impersonate and take the mantle of a genuine hero who died saving him.

The wishy washy characterisation of the three leads is the sequel trilogies biggest weakness imo.

You know who Han is in the first five minutes of meeting him, whereas two entire films in I still don't feel like I have a handle on any of the new cast, with the exception of Kylo Ren.

Yeah, pretty much all my issues as well. And I guess the disappointing bit is they're easily fixed with a little more patience. Even just a line or two of dialogue can be enough to bridge the gap.

The Finn thing is a bigger problem for me. A deserter Imperial stormtrooper is such a wonderful idea, so ripe with potential for an interesting conflicted character and two movies in, they've done nothing worthwhile with any of it. Mind you, I guess it explains why stormtroopers are so shite at everything they do if it's that simple to just walk away from a lifetime of conditioning.
"...and it was here in this blighted place, he learned to live again."

www.BLACKMOCCO.com
www.BLACKMOCCO.blogspot.com

sheridan

Quote from: blackmocco on 15 December, 2019, 11:30:04 PM
The Finn thing is a bigger problem for me. A deserter Imperial stormtrooper is such a wonderful idea, so ripe with potential for an interesting conflicted character and two movies in, they've done nothing worthwhile with any of it. Mind you, I guess it explains why stormtroopers are so shite at everything they do if it's that simple to just walk away from a lifetime of conditioning.

To see Imperial conditioning handled better - see Star Wars: Resistance (the second series, so far).

TordelBack

While I like Finn as a character, I agree that his entire Stormtrooper-based life which only ended about 2 days before the start of TLJ is very poorly reflected.

Having not had much enthusiasm for RoS since the trailers started,  I now find myself further discombulated to learn that my 13 year old son has arranged to see it with his mates, and not me. We've seen every SW since TPM 3D together, and while I'm primarily delighted that he's doing his own thing with his own friends,  I'm also more than a little sad to see that era end. Such is parenthood, but not exactly the boost my interest needed!

Definitely Not Mister Pops

#474
Quote from: TordelBack on 16 December, 2019, 09:14:38 PM
Having not had much enthusiasm for RoS since the trailers started,  I now find myself further discombulated to learn that my 13 year old son has arranged to see it with his mates, and not me. We've seen every SW since TPM 3D together, and while I'm primarily delighted that he's doing his own thing with his own friends,  I'm also more than a little sad to see that era end. Such is parenthood, but not exactly the boost my interest needed!

I wouldn't worry too much Tordels. I have just over two decades on your son, and back in the day I was too cool to go with me Da to Episode III. Now the only reason I'm going to bother with seeing this is so I can go with the Oulfla. Disney are going to keep churning out Star Wars, so the wee ingrate your son'll come back 'round eventually.

With regards to everything else upthread, I'm just a real cool guy and too groovy to pick apart/justify these lazily slapped together cash grabs. However, I do think it's nice that Disney have continued George Lucas's approach of having no grand sweeping plans or deep world building.
You may quote me on that.

karlos

Don't the review embargos lift tonight?

Genuinely fascinated by all the BTS stuff that seems to have gone on with this one - 6 endings shot?  Getting Uncle George back in?  Palpatine being shoe-horned in?

I'm slightly hopeful this will be a decent end (for now), but not getting my hopes up.

sheridan

Quote from: karlos on 17 December, 2019, 08:46:53 AM
Don't the review embargos lift tonight?

Do they?  I'd better keep off the internet until I see the film then!

Quote
Genuinely fascinated by all the BTS stuff that seems to have gone on with this one


My internet investigations have revealed that BTS is a South Korean pop group - what did you mean?

Bolt-01

Behind The Scenes?

I reckon I'll be leaving this thread alone now till after Sunday when I take the family...

karlos

Yup - Behind the scenes.

I'm pretty sure the embargo lifts at midnight tonight (or maybe tomorrow), so yes, better go dark until you see it!

karlos

[spoiler]Some early reviews are about...no details at all but the general consensus being, it's good stuff indeed.[/spoiler]