Main Menu

The Last Jedi - Forum Opinion

Started by Link Prime, 29 January, 2018, 04:04:13 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Enigmatic Dr X

And Leia floating was just shite.
Lock up your spoons!

TordelBack

#121
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 16 April, 2018, 11:22:31 PM
And Leia floating was just shite.

This is true.  The cruiser was established to be burning fuel, and thus accelerating at the time,  and therefore Leia and the rest of the expelled debris should have had rapid relative motion along the axis of acceleration: far from floating, Leia should have been falling 'down' towards their pursuers! However,  I choose to believe the Raddus' advanced shield envelope contained both debris cloud and frosty princess so that they continued to accelerate with the rest of the ship. 

That is what you meant,  right?   ;)

Look,  Dr X,  you have every right to your negative reaction, I'm not denying that. I'm just reporting my own,  different,  reaction. FWIW I also thought the Leia scene (while a strong idea) was awkwardly executed,  although I have warmed to it on successive viewings.

The Enigmatic Dr X

I'm a big enough boy to appreciate that you have a different view. It's wrong, of course, but I'm not going to go on and on about it.
Lock up your spoons!

TordelBack

#123
Fair dos. Although I probably am going to go on and on about it, it seems inevitable.

So in the spirit of rapprochement, here are some things I really don't like about TLJ:

Rose's theme.  While I like the character, and what her relationship with Finn brings,  her musical theme is overly cutesy,  and badly overused. There's a lot of pretty heavy handed dueling of character themes in TLJ,  and it largely works,  but when every line Rose has is underscored by this very distinctive, wishy-washy, vaguely preachy snippet,  it makes me cringe each time the camera swings her way. SW is all about the music, so this is a shame.

The explicit timescale. Was there any need to count down the rebels' fuel crisis in hours?  It makes the Canto Bight excursion ludicrous (all the way there in a tiny shuttle, land,  find the casino and the codebreaker, spend time in chokey and meet DJ,  escape and go for a ride, then travel all the way back to the fleet, sneak on to the Supremacy,  steal uniforms, find the circuit breaker, get caught,  all in less than 18 hours....). I know we have no idea how far the fleet is from CB, but that tiny modified B-Wing cockpit doesn't look like even the second-fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. And that doesn't even begin to address what this means for Rey's entire badgering Luke/training/Ren-communing/finding the fleet storyline.

I get that hyperspace travel has always been at plotspeed,  and that Jedi training can be super-quick, but it's putting actual numbers - of hours - on it that pulls me out of things. There must be better ways of conveying time pressure.

SIP

Oh no! People are still talking about last jedi!

I still hate it. Just for the record. Come on "Solo".......

Professor Bear

Leia Poppins looked stupid, and thus ended my criticism of the scene... so I was a bit surprised that people elaborated further with stuff like "because how does she do the Force?" and "airlocks is different than that."
I mean, if I had to probe beyond "it just looks stupid", I suppose my criticism comes from a general feeling that Star Wars works best the further it stays away from anything that looks like actual for-real science, so depicting vacuum just seemed like a bad idea - if only because this is the same movie series where Han and Leia only needed snorkels to walk around in the belly of a giant hand puppet sleeping with its mouth open to space and to get outside the Falcon all they did was open the front door and walk out.  "Airlocks" you say?  Those are for Star TREK, nerds.

TordelBack

#126
That's the size of it, alright, but while I hate to be That Guy (all my life), there does appear to be an airlock, or at least double doors, between the Bridge and the corridor.  You can see Leia heading for it at the end of her Unscheduled EVA.  Also, every hangar on every starship and space station is open to vacuum bar an almost invisible force field, not a big stretch to imagine the command bridge of a starcruiser might have an emergency one of those.

As to the non-sciencey aspects of the Force Poppins business, both the canonical cartoon series and the personal-ur-canon Tartakovsky series have Jedi propelling themselves in zero-G in exactly this manner.  I'm endlessly pointing out that prior to TESB, we had never seen a Jedi move an object with the Force, never seen a Force Ghost, never seen any precognition, never seen the super-speed Luke uses in the freezing chamber, indeed never seen Jedi have any kind of physical prowess at all - just choking people (possibly in Admiral Motti's mind rather than a physical constriction of his airway), sensing great disturbances/each other, making illusory sounds,  and talking a checkpoint guard out of Stop-and-Search on a charge of driving-while-golden. (Prior to RotJ, no blocking blaster bolts, no Force Lightning). 

So Leia suddenly up and flying, or Jedi projecting perfect images of themselves across the galaxy, why the outrage?  The implication is that we have already seen everything, and thus new things aren't welcome.  Ughh, I say.  UGHH! 

Another clever thing I hadn't noticed until the most recent rewatch was the way Rey and Ben's facetime sessions are depicted.  Ben notes that he can only see Rey, not her surroundings, and Rey seems in the same boat, as they are both shot (at least initially) from the front, staring into space, seeing each other as if in the space they themselves inhabit.  This sets up Luke's projection wonderfully - he goes one step forward and projects his image into everyone's minds, even through sensors etc., but he's under no obligation to show his actual circumstances. Equally the raindrop shows the potential persistence of the illusion after the connection is broken.


Mardroid

I basically saw Leia's floating through space as another use of telekinesis, i.e. if one can move an object with one's mind couldn't one move oneself, being an object in space too?*

Oo, 'ark at one!

A possible precursor to this may be when Luke allowed himself to drop on Bespin in Empire...
He didn't appear to fly, but he fell an awful long distance before plunging down that chute. Although it's not clear, I figured he used the force to at least slow down a bit.

And in the prequels and cartoons, I think we see Jedi jumping higher than is possible, suggesting a TK lift. (I guess it's possible the force can actually make you physically stronger too, so I could be wrong there.)

As for Luke's projection, I think I'd have had an issue with the if it was the first time we see this in the film, but it's set up earlier with other characters. There's the obvious communication between Ren and Rey, but we also see Yoda become tangible too, smacking Luke with his staff. And didn't he lose the surrounding corona in that scene, as well? If a force ghost can do this, I'd imagine the spirit of a living Jedi could do it too

*Objects in Space. One of the most interesting episodes of Firefly. Not related to this at all, of course.

The Enigmatic Dr X

Quote from: Mardroid on 18 April, 2018, 06:01:17 AM
I basically saw Leia's floating through space as another use of telekinesis, i.e. if one can move an object with one's mind couldn't one move oneself, being an object in space too?*

Oo, 'ark at one!

A possible precursor to this may be when Luke allowed himself to drop on Bespin in Empire...
He didn't appear to fly, but he fell an awful long distance before plunging down that chute. Although it's not clear, I figured he used the force to at least slow down a bit.

And in the prequels and cartoons, I think we see Jedi jumping higher than is possible, suggesting a TK lift. (I guess it's possible the force can actually make you physically stronger too, so I could be wrong there.)

As for Luke's projection, I think I'd have had an issue with the if it was the first time we see this in the film, but it's set up earlier with other characters. There's the obvious communication between Ren and Rey, but we also see Yoda become tangible too, smacking Luke with his staff. And didn't he lose the surrounding corona in that scene, as well? If a force ghost can do this, I'd imagine the spirit of a living Jedi could do it too

*Objects in Space. One of the most interesting episodes of Firefly. Not related to this at all, of course.

Yup. Buy all that.

But at what point was it revealed to the viewer that she was an actual Jedi? Or did she spontaneously train herself? (Like, um, Rey).
Lock up your spoons!

TordelBack

#129
"He can see things before they happen, that's why he appears to have such quick reflexes.  It's a Jedi trait."
"The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. My sister has it."

Why were Anakin and Luke such precocious pilots?
Who taught Luke to summon his lightsabre?
Who taught Rey to summon Finn's lightsabre?
Who taught Leia to hear Luke's call for help at Bespin?
Who taught Leia to sense her husband's death?

No-one did. 

Some abilities are demonstrably innate, or instinctive, in those pre-disposed to them.  I can't imagine that Leia didn't tinker with her potential gifts once she was aware of them, some time in the 30 years we missed, even if only to understand her son better.

"Pass on what you have learned". 

And that's even without the strong possibility that Luke actually found a few moments to teach her about moving rocks and making people do what you want.

Professor Bear

"Poe Damaron is my most trusted agent and I sent him on the most important mission the Rebellion had, and which was important to me personally, I trust him more than anyone in the whole of the Rebellion, even you, but I am specifically trying to teach him a lesson about going off and doing things on his own because that might result in deaths of people willing to follow him and others who will die as collateral and this is an especially precarious time for us all where any action might kill dozens, if not thousands of people and doom the galaxy to eternal fascism... what was I saying again?  Oh yes: don't tell him the plan if I get injured or something LOL.  Anyway, I'm just going to go sit on the bridge with Akbar for a minute.  BRB."

TordelBack

#131
That is one of the silliest things in TLJ, absolutely: a very risky way to teach someone in Poe's role the meaning of responsibility and restraint.  Also, as I argued somewhere in one of these threads, I'm pretty sure Poe's actions in the Illenium system actually saved the fleet by destroying the dreadnaught (the Raddus was about to be destroyed by it, and if it could have jumped sooner, why didn't it? Could have met up with the fighters later).  Imagine being chased by a ship specifically designed to punch through planetary shields, or how long their little bolthole on Krait would have lasted against that firepower: no need to laboriously drag miniature superlasers into position.

Andy B

Quote from: TordelBack on 17 April, 2018, 06:12:36 AM
I get that hyperspace travel has always been at plotspeed,  and that Jedi training can be super-quick, but it's putting actual numbers - of hours - on it that pulls me out of things. There must be better ways of conveying time pressure.

I can buy that they all speak English, but not that their 'hours' are the same length as ours. Must be longer!

TordelBack

I like the way you think, Andy.  As for their snakes, they seem about the same length.

JOE SOAP

#134
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 18 April, 2018, 08:20:07 PMBut at what point was it revealed to the viewer that she was an actual Jedi?

Leia was never revealed to be a Jedi but I'd wager most fans expected her at some point to display some force ability. No matter our personal opinion of the scene itself, The Last Jedi unsurprisingly showed that after 3 decades since learning of her origins, she could, or had learned in the meantime, to use the force. Demonstrating to the audience what they all ready guessed was true is hardly going against what had all ready been set-up – Return of the Jedi's retro-fitting of Vader's twins pushed that hint of force attunement back as far as The Empire Strike Back.