Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - Page 31

On December 25 2017 17:44 Falling wrote:

It's not more time that they need. In thirty seconds, the Dreadnought commander demonstrated more competence and military gravitas than Hux and purple-haired combined for their entire screen time. The first introduction of Helena Cain established her dominance. Movies have shorthand ways to portray good and bad commanders. The movie gives us all the signals of a bad commander with purple-hair- no protection of authority (listen to how Poe talks to her and she just lets him), no plan, and no communication and no showing of competence, just telling. "Need to know" with that sort of commander gives off all the signals of a classic incompetent commander. Then they turn around and expect us to think she is a great commander despite not showing any of her brilliance. Great job. You surprised me by not showing anything and then telling me what she is, which contradicts what my lying eyes see.

A proper military story that wanted to show that Poe had messed up, would have Poe upbraided for losing the fighter screen in a senseless attack... and there would be an onscreen demonstration of why that fighter screen would have been important (either for some brilliant escape plan that now won't work, or they are now vulnerable to attack.) We would physically see how he had dun goofed. But as it is, it seems to me he had the most successful plan. The fighters were useless anyways, he took out a really big ship and if they were thinking they could have used that as PR to spark the rebellion. 'Hey, look at us, even though we were outgunned and on the run, we can still blow up their biggest ships. Our pilots are the best. Join us the fight for freedom.' Instead we are just told things are bad because people died... it's freaking war: people die. It seems like it was a pretty good trade all things considered. Show me the consequences of his decisions. Show me he did a dumb thing, and show me that she is actually a competent commander. This is a visual medium, so show me the goods.

On December 25 2017 18:58 cLutZ wrote:
I think it is beyond dispute that "Resistance" leadership is extremely incompetent, and it seems to me that the director/writer doesn't understand this. Thus, we are supposed to accept that Discount Han Solo was wing because he was dressed down, but really we get nothing because Leia and Purple Hair never earned that.

That is the whole problem of the new movies though. People don't seem to earn their place or power. In Ep 7 Kylo and Rey seem far too strong considering their lack of training (Kylo gets a bit retconning in 8). The existence of the First Order is unearned. 8 just continues that with Purple Hair and Red Hair being commanding officer despite being stupid and emotional. Even Snoke's power remains a mystery because his whole character is. The only people who's position makes sense are these from other movies (Luke) or those who the writers don't understand (Poe, who is appropriately a mid-level officer).

On December 26 2017 02:23 Pr0wler wrote:

How did the emperor earn his position of power in the original series ? What did you learn about him from the movies ? What was his back story ? They just said "this is the emperor, he is more unpaitient than Vader". Then he shot lightning at Luke... then he found himself at the bottom of a shaft(Btw many people are upset, because Snoke didn't notice the lightsaber movement next to him... But nobody is upset about the "almighty" emperor doing basically the same in the original series). Great character.
Snoke is what the emperor was, pretty much exactly. They even existed for the same amount of time in their respective trilogies(a movie and a half).

On December 26 2017 03:46 Pr0wler wrote:
They both got killed while enjoying themselves too much and not paying attention.
The emperor was not fighting anything... Rewatch the movie. You have a fight when both sides can strike back, in this case he was just torturing Luke.

On December 26 2017 05:22 Zaros wrote:


He fights via force lightning and is in the middle of delivering the final blow of force lightning when Vader picks him up and so he kills Vader instead of Luke. Also the Emperor may not have been present in the first movie but he was mentioned throughout the first film.

On December 26 2017 08:54 Sermokala wrote:
Well the resistance doesn't have any males in a leadership position other than a mid level officer that can ignore orders and commit mutiny without so much as a negative comment. The first order doesn't have any females in a leadership position other than phasma who apparently doesn't matter and is never given value in the movie.

The movie lacks entirely any strong competent and stable characters. And leaves the movie with an evil side thats not a threat to a good side that effectively is starting from scratch being led by the biggest mary due in the history of fiction. We might as well just refer to all mary sues as rays.

On December 26 2017 09:57 levelping wrote:


Is there really a point to this kind of hyperbole?

We are talking about a film series where Luke was a desert farm boy who rescued a princess and blew up the death star in the first movie. Heck his father, anakin blew up a trade federation droid control ship... As a literal boy.

Rey flew the falcon took out some tie fighters, and lifted some rocks.

On December 26 2017 11:20 Sermokala wrote:

Its a multi billion dollar property involving almost every significant aspect of our culture. Children look up to these characters to form their identity. Its important to poeople.

Luke didnt fight well useing a lightsaber almost ever and.used it best at the end of three movies and a lot of training. Ray outmatched a trained and.vetrean sith less then a week after finding out lightsabers and the force were a thing. Ray who had before then been a begger child who had only been shown to fly a really fast bike and sled down a hill became a crack pilot capable of outflying kylos personal fighters on a ship she labeled as junk and didnt know how to fly in a matter of minutes. Luke is able to do the sled run beacuse he's bailed out by han and is just the last to die. He gives hope to the other fighters by comparing it to hitting rats with a blaster while on a super fast bike. He doesn't defeat Darth vader ever and only lives because of vader.

Anikin was champion podracer and that shits insane everything he did in the first one was an accident.

There are differences.

On December 26 2017 11:57 levelping wrote:


Yeah of course these films are important, but if your complaint is that Rey is too powerful, then it feels like you missed out on the general power levels of all the main characters in the trilogy.

At the time of ANH, Luke was a moisture farmer who wanted to joint the Imperial Academy. No part of this back ground tells us that he has even touched an x-wing, or any equivalent fighter. He does make the off hand remark that shooting the death start's heath exhaust port would be like shooting rats, but when you are shooting rats you aren't operating a fighter in three dimensions all the while with an entire death star's worth of TIE fighters trying to kill you. Han did help Luke, but come on, this whole story would be the equivalent of a farmer suddenly flying an F-16 and destroying North Korea with the help of a buddy.

Anakin was a champion podracer at NINE, without any real podracing training (he was a slave), and against older and seasoned opponents. Then as a nine year old boy he manages to fly a fighter into space, and "accidentally" destroy the droid control ship.

Plus I don't get the Rey beating kylo thing. TFA establishes that a) the wookie bowcaster is really powerful (it's show several times to blow people off their feet) b) Kylo gets hit directly in the gut by a shot from the bow caster; c) he is bleeding from the same wound during the fight with Rey; and d) Rey is shown to know how to use melee weapons because she already has her staff.

Rey beat Kylo thanks to the injury and her existing skill with the staff.

On December 26 2017 13:10 Sermokala wrote:

In what universe does staff fighting translate to a lazersword. They used the same fighting expert to train both to fight on an equal level. Finn gets a pass by the military training and the spinny laser thing. If bowcasters are lazer.weapons how do they make people bleed from their still somehow existing gut.

Luke isnt using the xwing that much but high speedboats would tranlate to the trench run in the first movie thats shown. Its not realistic but it doesnt strech past credulity of a girl killing pratorian guard after less then a week.

On December 26 2017 14:10 levelping wrote:


None of this universe is real (otherwise, torpedoes would not bend into a heat shaft and the fall DOWN into the reactor core of the first death star), so the physics of weapons like the wookie bowcaster are going to work in whatever way the plot requires. In TFA, it is clearly shown that Kylo got hit by one, and is bleeding into the snow when he fights Rey. The point is that the movie's internal logic explains why Kylo was weakened and how it is possible for Rey to beat him.

If Finn gets a pass with the military training and baton, why doesn't Rey's staff offer the same preparation? Plus if you can accept Luke's high speedboat, Rey drives that speed bike of hers and yet her flying the falcon is not plausible?

On December 26 2017 11:20 Sermokala wrote:
Its a multi billion dollar property involving almost every significant aspect of our culture. Children look up to these characters to form their identity. Its important to people.

On December 25 2017 18:32 levelping wrote:
Well, beyond your original comment about Poe, I don't think you have quite established that the male characters are associated with "feminine traits". Moreover, what you have viewed as "solipsistic" is merely hotheadedness (a very masculine trait) by another name.

On December 25 2017 18:32 levelping wrote:
Same for Kylo, who struggles with emotions common associated with men (anger) - I also do not follow how being emotionally manipulative is a female trait either, since as you have yourself pointed out, Palatine has done all that too.

On December 25 2017 18:32 levelping wrote:
Your mentioning of Luke, I think, really stretches the limits of association when you state "Notably a tumultuous past is a running theme is many movies with female leads (Maleficent, Mad Max: Fury Road, etc.)", when this same troupe appears repeatedly with male characters too (Batman).

On December 26 2017 11:20 Sermokala wrote:
Hux is again, hardly feminine in nature, since having a grovelling and ultimately cowardly henchman does not require that character to be a woman either. Littlefinger basically set the gold standard for scheming coward.

On December 25 2017 18:32 levelping wrote:
I hope you don't mind but I feel like this makes my point (without needing to go on to deal with the rest of the examples you have raised).

On December 25 2017 18:32 levelping wrote:
As for Holdo and Poe, I have actually had the tragic honor of wasting two years of my life in the military, and maybe it's done differently else where but challenging the position of your commanding officer in public, in the middle of an engagement, is going to get you an immediate dressing down. In combat you follow orders first, and then if you want you can have a discussion after the orders are executed. In Holdo's case, she actually went pretty lightly on Poe. She humored him in public, and when the conversation then became private she told him to shut up. He refused to listen, committed mutiny, and then got shot.

On December 26 2017 15:08 CosmicSpiral wrote:


You are underestimating the solubility of the franchise. Star Wars is a widespread phenomenon but it is one general touchstone among many. Children will look towards the MCU/DCU/James Bond/10 other intellectual properties for characters that reflect their own experiences, vulnerabilities, and aspirations. Poor attention to detail and hamfisted attempts to 'update' the material are a common trend among all large franchises. Whether these properties will lose their ineffable value and appeal as a result of boneheaded decisions is more pertinent.



Poe's hotheadness is the result of his lack of perspective: the movies explicitly says this three times through Leia's dialogue and Holdo's. Solipsism is the state of being unable to look beyond your own biases and beliefs. This is the prototypical "flaw" of women stretching back to antiquity. Plenty of guys still complain about that now.

Notably this isn't Han Solo's major flaw despite possessing the same character archetype. His great vice is selfishness. He is more than competent in his role, understands the social and economic realities of the galaxy better than Leia and Luke combined, yet won't risk his neck for the greater good unless profit is involved. This is a stereotypical male flaw.



As I clearly mentioned Kylo's issue isn't anger. That is the byproduct of being indecisive about who he wants to be, which also leads to feelings of helplessness and guilt and . He is emotionally volatile due to personal insecurity, and it's that unpredictability that underpins his latent threat as a character. Through the first two movies, he is not shown to be particularly intimidating in terms of skill or intelligence or ruthlessness. Even his last-minute betrayal of Snoke is rooted in an implausibility: that somehow Snoke can't ferret out his intentions despite literally having telepathy and mentioning how he freely uses it on his apprentice earlier in the same film. I suppose he was too busy yakking it up as a Saturday morning cartoon character to discern it.

Emotional manipulation is the gender-coded trait attributed to women. Palpatine is the crucial exception because he is pretending to be a well-established, noble character to everyone else. Once he reveals his true identity to Anakin, the pretense is dropped.



Luke Skywalker perfectly illustrates my point. The fandom obsesses over his relationship with his father, a man he never knew and barely interacts with throughout 3 films, yet the deaths of his aunt and uncle are an afterthought. ANH doesn't set aside time for him to grieve the real parents who raised him since birth. They only exist to set up the main plot and as a strong motivation for revenge (the Hero's Call is the overriding one), which Luke must overcome in RotJ in order to reject the call of the Dark Side.

In the backstories of most male characters, personal tragedy is used as the catalyst for their journey. The real triumph comes when they transcend their original intentions and commit themselves to a higher calling. Batman rejects eye-for-an-eye morality; Luke forgoes revenge and would rather die than become a Sith.



You left a little relevant fact out: Littlefinger is good at scheming. His whole shtick is being slimy and disrespected while being ahead of the game in other aspects. Hux isn't even good at sucking up to people; the whole point is that people don't know you're doing it. He is the incarnation of why military cultures justified excluding women from the military for millennia...except he's a man who inexplicably became a general.



"Nuh-uh" isn't a legitimate response.



As someone with the tragic honor of being immersed in military culture and knowing high-ranking military personnel for 6 times your experience, my condolences. You must have truly served with a subpar unit if that was the impression you left with.

Poe's hotheadness is the result of his lack of perspective: the movies explicitly says this three times through Leia's dialogue and Holdo's. Solipsism is the state of being unable to look beyond your own biases and beliefs. This is the prototypical "flaw" of women stretching back to antiquity.

Emotional manipulation is the gender-coded trait attributed to women. Palpatine is the crucial exception because he is pretending to be a well-established, noble character to everyone else. Once he reveals his true identity to Anakin, the pretense is dropped.

In the backstories of most male characters, personal tragedy is used as the catalyst for their journey. The real triumph comes when they transcend their original intentions and commit themselves to a higher calling. Batman rejects eye-for-an-eye morality; Luke forgoes revenge and would rather die than become a Sith.

You left a little relevant fact out: Littlefinger is good at scheming. His whole shtick is being slimy and disrespected while being ahead of the game in other aspects. Hux isn't even good at sucking up to people; the whole point is that people don't know you're doing it. He is the incarnation of why military cultures justified excluding women from the military for millennia...except he's a man who inexplicably became a general.

"Nuh-uh" isn't a legitimate response.

As someone with the tragic honor of being immersed in military culture and knowing high-ranking military personnel for 6 times your experience, my condolences. You must have truly served with a subpar unit if that was the impression you left with.

On December 26 2017 17:08 Acrofales wrote:
Speaking of overtly manipulative assholes: Kevin Spacey in house of cards. Especially as his manipulations mostly spectacularly backfire by the end of season 4 and he has to revert to outright criminal behavior and his wife bails him out numerous times. Yet nobody claims feminism went too far in house of cards, do they?

PS. I'm not saying I think holdo or hux are interesting or well-developed characters, just that feminism has nothing to do with the reason they fail as characters.