Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi (2017) (spoilers free to be seen)

[Variety of Cells]

The Dreadnaught has enough mass to attract the small bombs.

Not at that speed. They'd fall increadibly slowy.

Plus, the bomber ship (like all the Star Wars ships) has artificial gravity. So it makes sense they could direct that to eject the bombs.

That kind of makes sense. The existing artificial gravity would cause them to fall, and they would continue on that tragectory unless they touched each other, then they'd bounce off in weird directions. They only thing is they wouldn't pick up any speed after leaving the ship, as they did in the film.

But I think we can all admit that they have bombers in space not because they make sense, but because they look cool.

[NRRork]

Yeah, I really gotta go with Rule of Cool for the bombers. One of the First Order's ships had a periscope on it too for god's sake. What use could THAT possibly have that a large, HD screen couldn't display better?

Maybe they're magnetic or somehow covered in a special electrically charged casing that causes them to latch onto enemy ships, but the bomber itself is also shielded to keep the bombs from sticking to IT. Actually, that's not an alternate explanation, it's just a better IDEA and how they should've done it. But, too much exposition.

They used bombers because it's cool and people get how bombers work in OUR world. It's Star Wars, it's more like Lord of the Rings with spaceships and robots than hard sci-fi.

[NRRork]

And the special containment system for the bombs in the bombers makes them unable to have decent shielding, which would give them a neat flaw and raise the stakes, and explain why they exploded if an enemy pilot so much as looked at it menacingly.

Look at me, punching up Star Wars movies.

[Pak-Man]

I always wonder what the physics are with the torpedo thingies going out of the X-Wing and into the Death Star in A New Hope. It's like they get sucked into the target. Then the Death Star blows up and I don't care anymore.

[RoninFox]

My brother told me last night about John Scalzi's running theory about anything that doesn't seem to make sense in Star Wars.

This is a story that is more mythology than sci-fi, and for a specific reason. That reason is the whole "long time ago" thing. When these events happened, there was perfectly adequate science to explain how these things happened, but now, far into the future, we have to interpret the events based on our understanding of technology that has been lost for millenia.

Stretching to make a point? Yeah, but I'll buy it.

For me, this is part of the now endless pattern. New Star Wars comes out, I go to see it and am thoroughly entertained. I come home to see that the internet believes it was an abortion that completely ruins everything in the history of time and they'll never watch Star Wars again. The movie makes all the money and time goes on.

I loved it, I think its my favorite of the new films (and I really loved Rogue One). I loved that there was a scoundrel character that had the opportunity to become a hero, but instead sold everyone out and ran. I love cranky Master Skywalker. I love the aknowledgement of the Jedi's failure and weakness, coupled with everyone elses failures and the theme Yoda lays out that failure is a teacher. I love that Snoke became a victim of his own arrogance and now we are left with the more interesting villain going forward. I loved seeing it play out that the choice that Luke resisted, in striking down Palpatine in anger, would indeed have solidified his place on the dark side.

So far my two nitpicks are that DJ's stutter was a little distracting and the Porg that Chewbacca almost ate looked too plastic.

I can live with those.

[Henry88]

and i do wonder if snoke might return as a force ghost,to haunt kylo.

[Darth Geek]

This is a story that is more mythology than sci-fi, and for a specific reason. That reason is the whole "long time ago" thing. When these events happened, there was perfectly adequate science to explain how these things happened, but now, far into the future, we have to interpret the events based on our understanding of technology that has been lost for millennia.

I do agree. It's important that the arguments about the technology need to be made within the rules the movie itself sets up. If they do one thing in a movie and then a different thing in another, that's a conflict. But just because we haven't seen it before, or it doesn't make sense based on OUR basic science understandings, that doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

The same goes with the Force. In the movies, there has never been a definitive limit on what the Force could or could not do. So nothing we see the characters doing in this movie is against what we've seen them do in other movies.
You could argue that brings up the problem of "well, why didn't they do that when ___". And that's fair. But it's also the creativity and knowledge of the Force that the characters have at that time. For all we know, Luke is literally the first person to figure out how to project himself like that.

[RoninFox]

This is a story that is more mythology than sci-fi, and for a specific reason. That reason is the whole "long time ago" thing. When these events happened, there was perfectly adequate science to explain how these things happened, but now, far into the future, we have to interpret the events based on our understanding of technology that has been lost for millennia.

I do agree. It's important that the arguments about the technology need to be made within the rules the movie itself sets up. If they do one thing in a movie and then a different thing in another, that's a conflict. But just because we haven't seen it before, or it doesn't make sense based on OUR basic science understandings, that doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

The same goes with the Force. In the movies, there has never been a definitive limit on what the Force could or could not do. So nothing we see the characters doing in this movie is against what we've seen them do in other movies.
You could argue that brings up the problem of "well, why didn't they do that when ___". And that's fair. But it's also the creativity and knowledge of the Force that the characters have at that time. For all we know, Luke is literally the first person to figure out how to project himself like that.

And I feel like a lot of people missed the setup for Luke's end. I can't remember the exact line, but when Kylo and Rey first had thier connection and Kylo instantly tried to probe Rey's mind, he pulled back and mentioned that exerting over that distance would be fatal.

[CJones]

The bombing scene is probably the best-choreographed space battle in a long history of great space battles.

You mean other than the fact that space bombs don't make any sense, right?

Keep in mind, their ships do have artificial gravity.

I watched TLJ yesterday. There was a lot of stuff I liked. But there was also a fair amount I didn't like. Primarily the fact that Fin and Rose's story line went no where. Also, Snoke went out like a chump without any explanation of who he was. The rebels only had one capital ship? And who the hell was Laura Dern's character supposed to? And can we have had a scene where Captain Phasma isn't a complete fuck up? There's no way she could have been beaten by Fin.

OTOH, I actually did like what they did with Luke.  Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Adam Driver all gave great performances.

[NRRork]

And I feel like a lot of people missed the setup for Luke's end. I can't remember the exact line, but when Kylo and Rey first had their connection and Kylo instantly tried to probe Rey's mind, he pulled back and mentioned that exerting over that distance would be fatal.

Yeah, I noticed that one the second time. Definitely a new one, maybe in the books or the tv shows they had something about using the Force to death, but there's no precedent for that in the movies. But it still fits, it's a setting where most of the knowledge of the Force has been probably been lost. Yoda didn't have time to teach Luke EVERYTHING, assuming he knew all of it himself, and I like to think even he didn't. Speaking of Yoda, they never showed a force ghost being able to affect the "real" world before either.

[NRRork]

On the "Why didn't they just tell Poe the plan?" thing, I get where Leia and Holdo were coming from and what they were trying to get through to Poe. But they kinda failed their own lesson. They wanted him to learn that they have to pick their battles and be more pragmatic when so many lives on the line.

And then endangered the whole mission because Holdo couldn't put the dick-measuring contest on hold until AFTER they were out of imminent mortal peril. Not saying she was wrong, but, maybe she could've waited to assert her rightness until a time when it wouldn't endanger the mission and everyone's lives.

Now the real question is whether that was lazy writing or if that was the whole IDEA that the older, wiser mentors aren't as wise as they think they are because THEY all screw up pretty royally in this movie, too. No one over 50 had a good day in the movie.

[Henry88]

That's why the latest Star Wars trilogy is so dark: It's looking more and more like real life
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2017/12/16/16783782/star-wars-the-last-jedi-hope-a-hard-sell

[Pastor of Muppets]

The whole movie was depressing.  It was act after act of plans being made then immediately failing.  It's like watching a baseball game where all the runs are reset to zero after each inning.

[Pak-Man]

That's kinda how Empire Strikes Back went down, too.

[Pastor of Muppets]

That's kinda how Empire Strikes Back went down, too.

The Rebels didn't flee from Hoth only to be immediately killed off by the pursuing Empire.