Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

For feck's sake, there was artificial gravity in the bomber (ebidence: Paige's fall), the bombs accelerated under that gravity as normal and then proceeded at a constant velocity towards the target, as per Newton.

EDIT: balls, I see Sheridan already linked to someone else's more elaborate fanon.

I'm not sure the ship's gravity way would've worked anyway, wouldn't the lowest bombs have had a briefer window for acceleration, dropping for a shorter distance before they leave the influence of the ship's gravity? the top bombs would've crashed into the lower ones on the way out.

[The Legendary Shark]

Magnetic field launch, similar to a railgun but at much lower energies.

[TordelBack]

No doubt the slow chase is a contrivance, but no more than any other - why didn't some of the fleet pursuing the Falcon in TESB jump ahead a bit and box them in? Why didbt Vader get in his figter and blow the crap out of them? Or to put it another way, who gives a flying feck.

As to the support ships slowing down and tumbling, I can only presume that everyone was constantly accelerating and what we see as slowing is relative to that acceleration.    Equally, from the way that all SW ships decelerate and turn in real-space (from day one), it is clear that there is some other force at work other than simple linear thrust.  I've always been happy with the aetheric rudder idea floated in the EU, that control surfaces on spaceships interact with some form of field (sub-space? Hyperspace itself? The Force? The luminiferous aether?) that allows them to brake and bank with no sign of appropriate retros or attitude thrusters.

Why we're suddenly keen to apply real world or even  SF physics to SW at all is completely beyond me anyway.

[JOE SOAP]

As for feckin' lightsabers, jaysus who thought that was a good idea.

[Steve Green]

I can buy a souped up freighter being able to outfly star destroyers, but frigates/capital ships all moving in a slow line and not one of the FO can jump ahead to cut them off? Bah.

Also, was there any reason for the fleet to not just split up, rather than being picked off in an easy to shoot straight line?

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

I didnt even think about it when watching the film, I just assumed the bombs were powered somehow. I'd look into putting thrusters with a bit more grunt on those bombers though

[TordelBack]

There were three ships and umpteen Star Destroyers - it would just have been three pursuits instead of one, and this way evacuation to the cruiser was feasible. Plus they were all aiming for the only convenient hidey hole in sublight range. Up until Rose and Finn worked out how they were being tracked, they had to assume all of the ships could be tracked.

My problem with the sequence is that everyone seems to have forgotten that the FO tracked a lone starfighter through hyperspace just the previous day.

[Jim_Campbell]

Why we're suddenly keen to apply real world or even  SF physics to SW at all is completely beyond me anyway.

I'm not! It's that the thing doesn't make sense within its own terms — if the rebel ships were faster, they should have been outpacing the Imperial ships. I've long said that I don't go looking for plot holes, and long bemoaned the fact that SF fans, in particular, have a tendency to spot holes where none exist, but this really didn't seem to hold together.

[Steve Green]

Seemed more than three at the time.

I'd rather have had some active saboteurs on both the FO and resistance side, it might have given that air of paranoia and people throwing spanners in the works rather than just being dumb.

I wouldn't have minded seeing it all ending up on Canto Bight rather than Crait, seems like that might have brought the war home to the elite rather than giant bunnies running amok.

[Jim_Campbell]

Up until Rose and Finn worked out how they were being tracked, they had to assume all of the ships could be tracked.

Was I the only one who thought the repeated close-ups of the ultimately not-very-significant beacon-wrist-thingie was leading up to a revelation that that was how they were tracking the fleet? I was fully expecting an anguished debate about cutting Rey adrift to save the fleet but, in the end, it just seemed to get forgotten about...

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

I definitely thought it was going to be important, I guess ultimately it was just to explain how Finn could be going to find her?

[TordelBack]

Up until Rose and Finn worked out how they were being tracked, they had to assume all of the ships could be tracked.

Was I the only one who thought the repeated close-ups of the ultimately not-very-significant beacon-wrist-thingie was leading up to a revelation that that was how they were tracking the fleet? I was fully expecting an anguished debate about cutting Rey adrift to save the fleet but, in the end, it just seemed to get forgotten about...

I certainly thought there would be a traitor making use of that beacon somehow (Holdo most likely, or even Rose) but then that confounding of expectations remains something I really enjoyed.

As to the beacon itself, it is pretty significant: when Finn grabs it after Leia is flash-frozen, it prompts his attempted desertion. He then passes it to Poe when he heads for Canto Bight, establishing that he isn't running away again.

And finally, R2 uses its twin to precisely locate the survivors on Crait.

Symbolically it stands in for Finn and Rey's bond, which predates their involvement with the Resistance, and which is still Finn's main motivation coming into the film.

[TordelBack]

Why we're suddenly keen to apply real world or even  SF physics to SW at all is completely beyond me anyway.

I'm not! It's that the thing doesn't make sense within its own terms — if the rebel ships were faster, they should have been outpacing the Imperial ships. I've long said that I don't go looking for plot holes, and long bemoaned the fact that SF fans, in particular, have a tendency to spot holes where none exist, but this really didn't seem to hold together.

A fair comment, but I still think there are equal internal inconsistencies in how space travel works in most of the other films that folk (not necessarily Jim) seem happy enough to accept.

My personal beef about the chase is the imposed timescale, which has Rey's experiences on Ahch-To compressed into about a day and two nights, and Finn's mission to Canto Bight to a matter of hours. That's actually worse than the official two-day timescale of Revenge of the Sith, and equally unnecessary.

But I'm happy to overlook these flaws because I thought it was a fantastically rich and enjoyable movie.

[sheridan]

I was particularly pleased that Rey [spoiler]isn't the offspring of royalty / force masters, as seems to be the case in so much fiction[/spoiler].

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

I was particularly pleased that Rey [spoiler]isn't the offspring of royalty / force masters, as seems to be the case in so much fiction[/spoiler].

I feel like theres a good chance Kylo was lying about that to be honest. Plot-wise I'm not exactly waiting with bated breath for the next one, so I'm clinging tightly to my theory that theres more to that particular mystery!!