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Spoilers for the film are in this thread, read at your own peril if you have not seen the movie. No more spoiler tags from page 20 |
On January 16 2018 23:59 sharkeyanti wrote:
It's been so interesting reading about the wildly varying opinion on Episodes 7 and 8 in relation to the rest of the series. I think sometimes it's important to remember George Lucas' initial idea for Star Wars: a modern update on Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers-style sci-fi serials with a few high-browed influences (Kurosawa, WW2/Vietnam War parallels).
I've found it helpful to just not care about the movies during their production and just go watch it in the theater on release. If you spend all this time speculating you probably will be disappointed in some way.
I am of a similar mind. I only watched the teaser for this film and went in mostly blind and liked it a lot. I’m more interested in how the films are adapted and expanded. I liked this one a lot because it spent some time talking about people who don’t want to be part of the dark/light, empire/rebel, jedi/sith conflict in any way. And didn’t treat those people like they were heartless or cowards.
I also loved that Luke’s big moment wasn’t about being a violent powerhouse, but using the force to play to the Kylo’s weakness and his own myth. It feed into the initial promise of Jedi that was set out in the first movie, that they had the power that they did not use for violence.
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On January 16 2018 11:36 LegalLord wrote:
Also why not just shoot the cruiser first? As if without the fleet the ground forces would be able to go anywhere, rather than quickly and easily be picked off by fighters.
I thought this bit was established fine? The cruiser has a shield protecting it from the guns that can reach it. They start firing on the transports that are escaping. The cruiser starts a jump to light speed (while turning) and they think it's a ruse to draw fire away from the transports. They can't just quickly shoot it because the shields will still protect the ship as they have been doing.
Another thought...
Someone else mentioned how the lightspeed suicide kinda ruins a lot of the premise of the combat, but it's probably fine other than maybe thinking it could have been a valid tactic vs the death stars. Like the damage done by the jump/crash was against a very very large ship (Snoke's). It's reasonable that achieving the same vs smaller ships (even a Star Destroyer) would be impractical both economically and pretty difficult to pull off. And "Why don't they just hurl asteroids at each other" is something that's always been a suspension of disbelief for Star Wars considering none of how the space battles work makes any realistic sense anyways.
Anyways I feel like they made the crash make some sense (Star Wars sense at least) without ruining everything.
Also looking it up, canon-wise Snoke's ship had to use a shield similar to the Starkiller's base, both of which are very resilient shields but have a weakness to things traveling at lightspeed (not that the movie establishes this at all for Snoke's ship). So it seems like a Star Destroyer would be protected from such attacks by that method as well by virtue of using a different shield.
I also loved that Luke’s big moment wasn’t about being a violent powerhouse, but using the force to play to the Kylo’s weakness and his own myth. It feed into the initial promise of Jedi that was set out in the first movie, that they had the power that they did not use for violence.
I agree, Luke's whole thing is how the Jedi has perpetuated a cycle of violence with their hubris. If he showed up and battled Kylo Ren (never mind that he would have just gotten blasted apart) he would be going against the motivations he's had for the entire rest of the movie.
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No, I mean with the Dreadnought at the start of the movie.
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Luke's astral projection was definitely cool. A very Jedi-y thing. My problem was his death, which didn't seem necessary (I even wondered coming out of the theater if it was mainly driven by casting issues for SW9). I accepted it more at my second viewing, but for a very dedicated Star Wars fan it's still hard to swallow.
I really hope his death impacts a lot the story going forward. In term of Kylo especially, given that he's the last of the Skywalker line (I'm not expecting Leia to stay long :/). I'm sure Rey will be fine. I would be okay with some Luke force ghosting.
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I have high hopes for grumpy ghost Luke providing sage advice/snark to Rey as she mentors a new group of teen force users. That could be a pretty fun third movie.
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On January 17 2018 01:33 ZenithM wrote:
Luke's astral projection was definitely cool. A very Jedi-y thing. My problem was his death, which didn't seem necessary (I even wondered coming out of the theater if it was mainly driven by casting issues for SW9). I accepted it more at my second viewing, but for a very dedicated Star Wars fan it's still hard to swallow.
I really hope his death impacts a lot the story going forward. In term of Kylo especially, given that he's the last of the Skywalker line (I'm not expecting Leia to stay long :/). I'm sure Rey will be fine. I would be okay with some Luke force ghosting.
Yeah I'd be *shocked* if he's not a ghost in SW9 to a decent amount. But I hope he'll be talking to Kylo, not Rey.
I expect his death to impact Kylo a fair bit; Luke even hinted at it I believe.
I got the impression that Kylo harbors a lot of resentment towards Luke. Not the simple, "you tried to kill me" resentment, but something deeper like Luke is responsible for sending Kylo down the path he went and all the conflict he's feeling over his parents and his choices are because of Luke.
Luke's peaceful passing kinda felt like a big blow to Kylo in that sense; there's this sort of closure Kylo feels entitled to that Luke has just totally denied him.
A Luke ghost haunting Kylo would be pretty fitting for the sarcastic grumpy man Luke became.
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I had not thought of Luke dying saving the resistance, he deprived Kylo of the only driving motivation he had. And it feeds into the views that a Jedi’s real power is to be able to mentor and teach beyond death.
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Canada11450 Posts
On January 16 2018 13:52 levelping wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 04:42 Falling wrote:
If not for the second ending, I actually was about to call it worse than the prequels... I actually find this really hard to believe, especially since you go on to complain that TLJ fails various basic storytelling benchmarks/rules. The Prequels were down right horrendous movies from any objective benchmark. The camera was horrible (shot, reverse shot. Tracking walking shot. Back to shot reverse shot).. There are actual, racist caricatures in them (Jar Jar, the jewish slave owner of anakin (watto?), the whole trade federation). They turned Darth Vader, one of the scariest villains of all time, into whiny kid, whiny teenager, and then whiny man, to the point where we needed that last scene in Rogue One to finally redeem him. The script was so bad that it made Oscar-level actors (Portman, McGregor) look wooden. Hayden had no chance. And I haven't even talked about the "romance"...
Well, it's not like I'm giving those ones a pass. But camera work was not my complaint for TLJ- I'm sure it was great, but that's something I would not notice except with repeated watches to figure out why scenes are or are not working (the problem with the reaction shot of BB-8 after the hangar explodes for instance was not a first reaction, but a realization upon further reflection). For my initial few watches, I'm probably not thinking about that unless it's put together in an incomprehensible way. Caricatures are annoying, but doesn't destroy the structural bones of a story, unless it was more prominent. The Darth Vader Downgrade is much more fundamental and akin to my complaint that the new series undercuts the gains of the Return of the Jedi/ undercuts to Luke.
I also think they are fundamentally flawed as prequels and wrote a whole blog on it- they don't expand what we already know very well nor do they properly connect to the Original with the clues provided... and the new series does not properly project politically or thematically from the end of Return of the Jedi.
But I've never had the experience of resenting what I was watching in theatres, while watching it for the first time. My dislike for the prequels came with time when the stories did not hold up. But this is the first Star Wars film (or film in theatres) that fell apart on me while I watching it- it fell apart in real time as it were. Well, Seventh Son fell apart in real time for me, but that was enjoyably bad- mostly badly executed and pretty unimaginative.
Maybe I would have had the same reaction to Episode I had I watched it for the first time when I was older- I know I had some pretty surface-level critiques after the first watch, but I don't remember what they were. But to be sitting in a theatre and completely disliking what I was seeing on a first viewing and even resenting it? That was new- which is why I was leaning that direction. But like I said, the ending pulled me out of the nose dive and now I don't know how I would rank it- I just know what I have problems with and I haven't really found good counters to my problems.
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On January 17 2018 00:46 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 11:36 LegalLord wrote:
Also why not just shoot the cruiser first? As if without the fleet the ground forces would be able to go anywhere, rather than quickly and easily be picked off by fighters. I thought this bit was established fine? The cruiser has a shield protecting it from the guns that can reach it. They start firing on the transports that are escaping. The cruiser starts a jump to light speed (while turning) and they think it's a ruse to draw fire away from the transports. They can't just quickly shoot it because the shields will still protect the ship as they have been doing.
There was so much wrong with the chasing setup that I'm sure any average lay person could start asking questions and reach more logical answers than the movie directors and writers.
Which, again, I know Star Wars treats space like air and always has, but never so blatantly. Don't bother explaining the why unless you can actually explain it.
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On January 17 2018 00:08 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2018 23:59 sharkeyanti wrote:
It's been so interesting reading about the wildly varying opinion on Episodes 7 and 8 in relation to the rest of the series. I think sometimes it's important to remember George Lucas' initial idea for Star Wars: a modern update on Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers-style sci-fi serials with a few high-browed influences (Kurosawa, WW2/Vietnam War parallels).
I've found it helpful to just not care about the movies during their production and just go watch it in the theater on release. If you spend all this time speculating you probably will be disappointed in some way. I am of a similar mind. I only watched the teaser for this film and went in mostly blind and liked it a lot. I’m more interested in how the films are adapted and expanded. I liked this one a lot because it spent some time talking about people who don’t want to be part of the dark/light, empire/rebel, jedi/sith conflict in any way. And didn’t treat those people like they were heartless or cowards. I also loved that Luke’s big moment wasn’t about being a violent powerhouse, but using the force to play to the Kylo’s weakness and his own myth. It feed into the initial promise of Jedi that was set out in the first movie, that they had the power that they did not use for violence.
+1. I loved the theme of moral ambiguity/everyone else in the galaxy not a part of the rebels/first order. It didn't bash you over the head with it, but it didn't seem to skim over it either (in my opinion)
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The moral ambiguity fell apart when at the end of the movie it turned right back into "Resistance Good, First Order Bad" and Kylo Ren flew off the handle and never stopped to say "hey, maybe I don't need to kill all your friends."
Seriously. All we got was a turncoat scumbag who murdered 80% of the Resistance for money (thanks to poor communication) saying "well there are good guys on both sides you know." How illuminating. There wasn't a sympathetic First Order character or rich casino character in the entire movie.
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On January 17 2018 04:30 TheTenthDoc wrote:
The moral ambiguity fell apart when at the end of the movie it turned right back into "Resistance Good, First Order Bad" and Kylo Ren flew off the handle and never stopped to say "hey, maybe I don't need to kill all your friends."
Seriously. All we got was a turncoat scumbag who murdered 80% of the Resistance for money (thanks to poor communication) saying "well there are good guys on both sides you know." How illuminating. There wasn't a sympathetic First Order character or rich casino character in the entire movie.
Oh, I agree that it wasn't done perfectly. But it was the first time that I can remember any Star Wars movie even trying to tread into those waters. Maybe i'm not remembering some iconic scene.
Del Toro's character doesn't imply there are good guys on both sides. He says the he's going to side with whoever can butter his bread better. He says that rich people sell weapons to the "good guys" and the "bad guys." His character is what 80% of humans would do in his situation. He didn't have any allegiance to the Republic, so i'm glad he gave them up. It would've been disingenuous any other way.
I actually think Phasma's death was really cool in that respect. Could've done a lot more with her character obviously, but the way her mask breaks, you expect to see some humanity or some "come to Jesus" moment where she repents. She actually doubles down into her bad-ness, which wasn't what I expected.
I think Kylo Ren has showed a sympathetic side. Idk, I like his character and don't mind the angsty stuff everyone else seems to get triggered by.
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But it treated WAY more then into simple moral ambiguity. It realistically proposed the end of jedi and sith empire and resistance republic and first order. It had the evil bad guy beg the hero to join him to establish a new order in the universe of balance and to give up the ways of the violent warring cycles the universe and force that existed. .
Then it shat on all that to throw star wars back into where the series was right after episode 3.
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On January 17 2018 05:07 Sermokala wrote:
But it treated WAY more then into simple moral ambiguity. It realistically proposed the end of jedi and sith empire and resistance republic and first order. It had the evil bad guy beg the hero to join him to establish a new order in the universe of balance and to give up the ways of the violent warring cycles the universe and force that existed. .
Then it shat on all that to throw star wars back into where the series was right after episode 3.
I don't know; I think a lot of that judgement is going to have to kinda wait for the next movie.
It's basically two themes of the movies coming to a head together. On the one side you have the moral ambiguity of the Jedi Council and a lot of the characters in the movie (should Luke have killed Kylo, should the jedi keep existing, etc.).
On the other you have Kylo as basically this embodiment of entitlement. Like for all the conflict he feels and everything else the main flaw or trait of the character is his sense of entitlement. He deserves to be the next Darth Vader, he deserves to have Rey by his side, he deserves to be the supreme leader, he deserves to kill Luke Skywalker.
I thought the film did well of blending kind of those two bits together, Rey rejects Kylo and his entitlement attitude sends him into an emotional rage. I think there's something very real about Kylo thinking the world would be a utopia if only people would do what he says and give him what he deserves, but since they won't he's going to crush it all underfoot.
This temporarily blurs the moral ambiguity of the plot; but I don't think it's a permanent backtracking of the situation. It's still questionable if Rey should be pursuing the Jedi ways and a lot of the ambiguity of the sort of fights and losses the resistance are taking (specifically with Poe's heroics). The next movie could pick back up on these themes without missing a beat I think and it'd still feel natural.
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On January 17 2018 05:20 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2018 05:07 Sermokala wrote:
But it treated WAY more then into simple moral ambiguity. It realistically proposed the end of jedi and sith empire and resistance republic and first order. It had the evil bad guy beg the hero to join him to establish a new order in the universe of balance and to give up the ways of the violent warring cycles the universe and force that existed. .
Then it shat on all that to throw star wars back into where the series was right after episode 3. I don't know; I think a lot of that judgement is going to have to kinda wait for the next movie. It's basically two themes of the movies coming to a head together. On the one side you have the moral ambiguity of the Jedi Council and a lot of the characters in the movie (should Luke have killed Kylo, should the jedi keep existing, etc.). On the other you have Kylo as basically this embodiment of entitlement. Like for all the conflict he feels and everything else the main flaw or trait of the character is his sense of entitlement. He deserves to be the next Darth Vader, he deserves to have Rey by his side, he deserves to be the supreme leader, he deserves to kill Luke Skywalker. I thought the film did well of blending kind of those two bits together, Rey rejects Kylo and his entitlement attitude sends him into an emotional rage. I think there's something very real about Kylo thinking the world would be a utopia if only people would do what he says and give him what he deserves, but since they won't he's going to crush it all underfoot. This temporarily blurs the moral ambiguity of the plot; but I don't think it's a permanent backtracking of the situation. It's still questionable if Rey should be pursuing the Jedi ways and a lot of the ambiguity of the sort of fights and losses the resistance are taking (specifically with Poe's heroics). The next movie could pick back up on these themes without missing a beat I think and it'd still feel natural.
How is it not a backtracking of the plot? The "rebellion" is a few dozen people now maybe and the empire is the entire universe of people who've probably never been effected that much by the empire so much as the massive governmental collapse that the rebellion gave it. They're probably as happy now as they were after episode three when the empire was first announced. You have one sith at the head of the empire that probably has other sith to help him out.
Kylo isn't entitled hes the same as Ray in a lot of aspects. Hes got the skywalker legacy and force powers in him and His mom is busy trying to get the republic off the ground and his dad is a rouge thats probably not a great father figure either. Then he joins luke whos probably the best father figure he could get and he ends up trying to kill him. He ends up cold and alone in the universe where the hero of the universe thinks he needs to die and so he goes to the only one offering to take him in in snoke. Kylo isn't entitled to anything but people to care about him. He asks please beacuse he doesn't really want to be the bad guy he just doesn't see anything else he can do. He looks up to darth vader beacuse vader brought stability and peace to the universe.
The next movie has to be about resistance vs empire and have some death star plot because thats all the universe can be thanks to TLJ. Maybe Rain Johnson trilogy can do something else but the themes are baked in way to much at this point for the trilogy to be anything else.
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Canada11450 Posts
Yeah, I'm not really sure what they are going to set up for the climatic event aside from another super weapon. They really haven't established the geography of the First Order (unlike Lord of the Rings (films) that spent two films building up Isengard before knocking it down and three films building up Mordor before knocking it down). The original created a bigger universe: governors, Senate, Emperor- only finally met in the last film, and both Sith only defeated in the last- and the fleet only defeated in the last film. (And even then, they felt the need to recreate the Death Star)
In this series, they've only shown one taskforce and mentioned no other governing bodies. They've already killed the Emperor, they've been blowing up the Imperial fleet left, right, and centre and Rey already defeated Kylo in the first film and has also beat Luke Skywalker in this one... so what's left? Introduce the rest of the First Order in one film and then defeat it? Unfortunately, we've already seen the super-weapon of the week in the Bantam years of the EU- it got old pretty quick. (They also tended to sideline or incapacitate Luke at the beginning of the story because the EU made him to OP... I guess we got that again too  )
I recently thought of a rock-paper-scissor game as the power levels of all the characters seem to fluctuate wildly.
Rey beats Kylo
Kylo beats Snoke
Snoke beats Rey
And then you throw in Luke
Rey beats Luke and Kylo
Luke also beats Kylo
Snoke is dead, so now Kylo... beats Hux?
I've found it helpful to just not care about the movies during their production and just go watch it in the theater on release. If you spend all this time speculating you probably will be disappointed in some way.
I am of a similar mind. I only watched the teaser for this film and went in mostly blind
I actually tried that- I spent no time speculating what would happen. I had exactly one expectation going in- don't redo Empire Strikes Back... and I don't think they even cleared that low bar. All my complaints stem from them not connecting one film to the other into a proper trilogy and into a coherent story- I didn't have any ideas on how to fulfill their questions, just that they do so.
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Power levels in Star Wars has always been the least interesting thing about Star Wars. All this space spiritualism that only results in who has the biggest, best super powers of the space wizards.
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On January 17 2018 05:52 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2018 05:20 Logo wrote:On January 17 2018 05:07 Sermokala wrote:
But it treated WAY more then into simple moral ambiguity. It realistically proposed the end of jedi and sith empire and resistance republic and first order. It had the evil bad guy beg the hero to join him to establish a new order in the universe of balance and to give up the ways of the violent warring cycles the universe and force that existed. .
Then it shat on all that to throw star wars back into where the series was right after episode 3. I don't know; I think a lot of that judgement is going to have to kinda wait for the next movie. It's basically two themes of the movies coming to a head together. On the one side you have the moral ambiguity of the Jedi Council and a lot of the characters in the movie (should Luke have killed Kylo, should the jedi keep existing, etc.). On the other you have Kylo as basically this embodiment of entitlement. Like for all the conflict he feels and everything else the main flaw or trait of the character is his sense of entitlement. He deserves to be the next Darth Vader, he deserves to have Rey by his side, he deserves to be the supreme leader, he deserves to kill Luke Skywalker. I thought the film did well of blending kind of those two bits together, Rey rejects Kylo and his entitlement attitude sends him into an emotional rage. I think there's something very real about Kylo thinking the world would be a utopia if only people would do what he says and give him what he deserves, but since they won't he's going to crush it all underfoot. This temporarily blurs the moral ambiguity of the plot; but I don't think it's a permanent backtracking of the situation. It's still questionable if Rey should be pursuing the Jedi ways and a lot of the ambiguity of the sort of fights and losses the resistance are taking (specifically with Poe's heroics). The next movie could pick back up on these themes without missing a beat I think and it'd still feel natural. How is it not a backtracking of the plot? The "rebellion" is a few dozen people now maybe and the empire is the entire universe of people who've probably never been effected that much by the empire so much as the massive governmental collapse that the rebellion gave it. They're probably as happy now as they were after episode three when the empire was first announced. You have one sith at the head of the empire that probably has other sith to help him out. Kylo isn't entitled hes the same as Ray in a lot of aspects. Hes got the skywalker legacy and force powers in him and His mom is busy trying to get the republic off the ground and his dad is a rouge thats probably not a great father figure either. Then he joins luke whos probably the best father figure he could get and he ends up trying to kill him. He ends up cold and alone in the universe where the hero of the universe thinks he needs to die and so he goes to the only one offering to take him in in snoke. Kylo isn't entitled to anything but people to care about him. He asks please beacuse he doesn't really want to be the bad guy he just doesn't see anything else he can do. He looks up to darth vader beacuse vader brought stability and peace to the universe. The next movie has to be about resistance vs empire and have some death star plot because thats all the universe can be thanks to TLJ. Maybe Rain Johnson trilogy can do something else but the themes are baked in way to much at this point for the trilogy to be anything else.
I think you are looking at entitlement in kinda a weird way, in the sense that you frame it that Kylo isn't entitled to anything. Which is uh true, but that's the point of why Kylo has this entitlement flaw/trait. Kylo *feels entitled* to things regardless of if he deserves them; it's clear because he's consistently emotional after being denied something he feels the right to. He feels like he did a good job killing Han, Snoke chides him and Kylo feels anger at not being given the accolades he feels he deserves. He wears his helmet and feels like that makes him a Vader figure and shows anger and rage when he's not treated to that level of respect. He wants to kill Luke and is enraged when he's denied his dues on that front Like it's baked into his character and it's in a way that he can't see it himself. He's constantly defeating his better intentions with his sense of entitlement (like his response when he can't turn Rey), but he's unable to see that about himself and it just keeps fueling his further decline despite his inner efforts to be a better person.
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Canada11450 Posts
On January 17 2018 06:16 Plansix wrote:
Power levels in Star Wars has always been the least interesting thing about Star Wars. All this space spiritualism that only results in who has the biggest, best super powers of the space wizards.
I'm being facetious about power levels and rock-paper-scissors. The serious point is the dragon at the end of the story has already been defeated- one in the first and the second in the second... and not even in the climax. Neither trained to get stronger- so we're roughly in the same place as the first film, except now Rey can beat Luke. There's not much left for Rey except to face the already defeated Kylo; she is already the One.
By the way, how much time passed in that film? Because I swear there were multiple day/night cycles on the Luke planet, but there was only 18 hours of fuel in the cruisers. Is that planet madly spinning like a ninny, six times earth's own speed (so like 6000 miles/ hr), but she's taking short power naps? Or what's going on with the chronology?
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On January 17 2018 08:33 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2018 06:16 Plansix wrote:
Power levels in Star Wars has always been the least interesting thing about Star Wars. All this space spiritualism that only results in who has the biggest, best super powers of the space wizards. I'm being facetious about power levels and rock-paper-scissors. The serious point is the dragon at the end of the story has already been defeated- one in the first and the second in the second... and not even in the climax. Neither trained to get stronger- so we're roughly in the same place as the first film, except now Rey can beat Luke. There's not much left for Rey except to face the already defeated Kylo; she is already the One. By the way, how much time passed in that film? Because I swear there were multiple day/night cycles on the Luke planet, but there was only 18 hours of fuel in the cruisers. Is that planet madly spinning like a ninny, six times earth's own speed (so like 6000 miles/ hr), but she's taking short power naps? Or what's going on with the chronology?
Was it 18 hours at the start? I thought they started out with a few days of fuel and later mentioned when they were down to only 18 hours.
I don't know that Rey is already "the one". The setup seems to be implying that Rey and Kylo rise in power together; that the Force's balance is being maintained.
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