Star Wars discussion

[Grond]

Oh goodness.  I just found out that the music for Snoke in TFA is amazingly similar to the music when Palpatine's telling Anakin the tale of Darth Plagueis!!!  This had to have been deliberate.  In addition, during the San Diego Comic Con back in 2015, someone asked about Plagueis, at which Daisy Ridley looked at J.J. Abrams and asked, "Is that S-" before she stopped herself.

Makes me even more upset about TLJ than ever.  I'm really glad that Abrams is doing IX.  Hopefully he can retcon Snoke to be someone important and explain Rey's ridiculous Force ability in a better way beyond "she read Kylo's mind and downloaded his Force powers" (this is actually in the novelization).  I'd be almost okay with the Force stuff Rey did in TLJ /except/ for lifting three tons of boulders at the end with no strain.  Absolutely absurd.  That's stuff I doubt many prequel-era Jedi could do.

I just keep reading stuff about TLJ and find out even more plot holes and nonsense every day.  I know now that the novelization attempted to explain the Holdo maneuever with some stuff about "augmented experimental shields" and hyperspace coordinates - the excerpt's online if anyone wants to read it - but it's not a satisfactory answer.  And there's so many random other things that are just bad.  It's just weird how quickly Finn and Rose decide that they're being tracked from the main ship and instantly know how to take it down.  (And I'm upset that they keep making Finn the FO's janitor.  He canonically did tons of battle training and received top marks, as shown in the book Before the Awakening.)

There's so much random other stuff too, like when Finn tells Poe they're being tracked from the lead ship, Poe's immediately just like, "okay, let's take the ship out!"  Like, what?  Snoke's ship is enormous!  And Finn replies, "I like where you're heading, but no.  They'd only start tracking us from another Destroyer."  And their whole mutiny they decide on afterwards hinges on the assumption that they're /only/ being tracked by the FO's lead ship, which is a huge assumption to make, since apparently the FO's other ships have hyperspace tracking abilities too!  And why didn't Maz tell them the Master Codebreaker's name and species?  Real helpful.

There's so much more beyond what I've listed.  The movie's okay until you go online and read some criticism, then it falls apart on so many levels.  It's a car crash.

[/rant]

Yeah that's one of thing of many that irked about the new Star Wars is how inept they make the antagonists. Its also a thing that annoyed me with Redwall. Its also accompanied by a lack of any strategy the protagonists win because they're just so much better and completely walk over their enemies. It takes a lot of depth and struggle out of the plot. Its even worse when it makes zero sense for that to be the case.

Take the fight between Ren and Rey in the forest on starkiller base in episode 7. By that point Ren likely had years if not decades of training and combat experience in using a light saber. He is also described as extremely talented in the force. Yet Rey, who at that point had zero training in light saber combat, defeats him easily. Then in the TLJ I think even Luke says that Rey is Ren's opposite in the force- light vs. dark and they're powers are seen as equal. As she did many of the same force feats that he did when Luke started training him. If this is the case then the fight on the starkiller base planet should have had the opposite ending...

[Jukka the Sling]

Yeah, the First Order is totally inept in TLJ. :/  (And the movie completely de-fanged Hux.  I hate what they did to him.  Apparently it was the actor's idea to have that little scene of him about to shoot Kylo, and I'm so glad it was there.  I hope he returns to his normal self in IX.)

See, I can kinda hand-wave Rey beating Kylo in TFA, since he'd just taken a shot from Chewie's bowcaster (that was established to be capable of throwing stormtroopers like rag dolls), and he was also unbalanced from killing his father.  But TLJ Rey is absolutely absurd.  Suddenly she's able to lift dozens of boulders at once with barely any strain, and she took out THREE TIEs in ONE SHOT the first time she ever used the Falcon's cannon!  Luke literally never did anything of the kind on his first try, and he's the son of the Chosen One!

But yeah, TLJ messed up so badly in so many ways.  It's incredible how much damage control the novelization and comic have been doing to patch up the problems (like, the comic adaptation had Holdo actually tell Poe "I have a plan", which is a vast improvement over the movie.  And I learned that the novel includes some technical details to explain away the Holdo maneuver as a one-off occurrence with stuff about hyperspace coordinates and "augmented experimental shields", none of which were mentioned in the film).  I really think Rian Johnson should have had a co-writer.

[Jetthebinturong]

I am shooketh.

[Jukka the Sling]

JUST CAME HERE TO POST THAT.  EXCITED IS A COMPLETE UNDERSTATEMENT.  I WAS 90% SURE THAT SOMETHING WOULD BE ANNOUNCED ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE SHOW AT SDCC BUT I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS RIGHT.  *hyperventilating*

[The Skarzs]

Kewl. Looks like they've improved their animation.

[Hickory]

Given Anakin's hair and Obi-Wan's robes, it might not be too much of a stretch to hope that this leads right into Revenge of the Sith like the original 2003 series did.

I can't wait to see the Bad Batch come to fruition, as well as the Siege of Mandalore. 12 new episodes is hardly enough, but it shall satiate me for now.

[Jetthebinturong]

Yeah I think they're gonna do the Crystal Crisis arc, the Bad Batch arc and the Siege of Mandalore arc. The first two I'm disappointed by, since I wanted to see the arcs we haven't seen yet. Son of Dathomir would have been my first choice.

[Jukka the Sling]

https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-ix-cast-announced

CARRIE FISHER IS RETURNING THROUGH UNSEEN FOOTAGE FROM TFA AND MARK HAMILL IS ALSO RETURNING AND SO IS BILLY DEE WILLIAMS.  AND THERE ARE THREE NEW ACTORS CAST.

[Jukka the Sling]

MakingStarWars.net has reported a rumor that Jon Favreau's live-action show will be about Mandalore after the fall of the Empire.  Their information is from a source who's proven reliable in the past.

...I seriously hope this is true.  I'm so excited.

[Jukka the Sling]

Not sure what to think of this... it honestly gives me Voltron: Legendary Defender vibes (no, I haven't yet seen that show).

[Jetthebinturong]

That animation style is never going to work. I wish studios would just give up on it.

[The Skarzs]

Oh gosh.
Give me the old Warner Bros Justice League animated series style. It just makes everything better.

[Jukka the Sling]

That trailer now has over 30,000 dislikes and counting.  Hardly anyone likes it.  It's crazy.

[Hickory]

Well, there was some more Star Wars: Resistance content released on Youtube this week:

If there's anything that I like about it, it's the T-85. Starfighter designs are awesome, and I'm curious to learn all about the new one, especially since it's the mainstay fighter of the New Republic. Maybe we'll see some other cool NR designs in the show, though I doubt that it'll happen (Nebula-class is probably too much to ask for...). And the modified starfighter designs these pilots use are a little interesting, though probably nothing more than eye candy.

[Jukka the Sling]

Honestly... the more I've seen of the show, the more it's (kind of) begun to grow on me.  Neeku, at least, looks like a really funny, lovable character.  I'm not totally on board yet, but I'll definitely still watch it, and I hope the show turns out to have depth after a while like Rebels.

On a related note, MakingStarWars.net has been sharing set photos from the upcoming live-action Star Wars show.  They've also reported a rumor that Dave Filoni will be directing two episodes of the first season!!!

EDIT:  The show's title was just announced as The Mandalorian and it will follow the exploits of a gunslinger in the Outer Rim. https://www.instagram.com/p/BofTUzhBtrZ/?hl=en&taken-by=jonfavreau