We saw a Star War! Last Jedi spoiler thread

Water Bob said:

I wonder what the smallest limit it on a hyperspace capable craft? The size of a fighter? Smaller? Could hyperdrive missiles be used, or are missiles too small to house hyperdrives?

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Roughly fighter-size - the Empire generally doesn't find it cost-effective to fit hyperdrives to their starfighters, and during the prequel era it was more common practice to use an external hyperdrive 'sled' to take smaller craft between systems.

Probably the smallest hyperdrive-capable vehicle we see in the movies are Imperial probe droids, which are essentially missiles carrying a surveillance droid as their 'warhead'.

RangerWickett said:

With the Emperor, the backstory we got was, "The Emperor has dissolved the Senate. The last remnant of the old republic is now gone."

Sure, with the First Order and Snoke I'd like a couple lines, something like Hux proclaiming, "Our Supreme Leader found the quivering remnants of the old empire and forged us into a sword that has cut through our enemies on a hundred worlds," but that would be enough. How big is the First Order, was Snoke part of the empire or an outsider, and maybe a few other tidbits to provide contour for the personal stories of the characters.

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Not really comparable, though. When we saw Star Wars for the first time, we had no background for the GFFA, so we could easily just accept the existence of an Empire that had, a generation ago, replaced the Republic, and an Emperor that had just dissolved the Senate.

Now, we know that the Empire was defeated and the Emperor killed 30 years ago, and that the Emperor was the most powerful dark side force user around. We know about the Sith, and the "rule of two," and that both of them were killed. We know that the Empire was the culmination of generations - perhaps thousands of years' worth - of sith machinations.

So, if you open the window 30 years later to show us another super-powerful dark side force user at the head of another (or maybe the same) galaxy-dominating army of space nazis, you really have some explaining to do. We saw the rebel alliance, with our heroes Luke, Leia, and Han, solve all these problems before. Now we're being shown our three heroes as a bunch of losers (a failed teacher who quit and went to pout for the last decade; a would-be patriot that was forced out of government, get her resistance movement decimated, and whose 'allies' abandon her in her moment of need; and a hustler on the run from pretty much everyone who left his wife and gave up on his kid, who tries to reach out to that kid and gets skewered and dropped down a hole by that kid.) We're being shown that they really might as well have not bothered, because the Sith Lord and his Space Nazis seems to be stuck on repeat.

I mean, I approached Ep 7 with enthusiasm. I didn't know what to expect our heroes to be up to 30 years later, but what I did not expect was to find them miserable, wretched, and pathetic. Ok, so they killed Han. I know they were talking about that in Ep 6, so it's not a huge shock. Surely that sacrifice will motivate Luke to get off his ass and join Leia, and surely Leia will be a beacon of hope around which the galaxy can rally, right? Nope. Welcome to Ep 8, where Leia proves to be the worst military commander ever, and where Luke is a whiny, self-absorbed failure. When he does snap out of it, he manages to be a badass for a couple of minutes, which is too much for him to handle and he just dies because reasons.

I digress.

My point is that we're not starting with a blank slate. We've got a galaxy far, far away that we left with the biggest problems solved and established heroes in their prime to tidy things up. If you start the sequel trilogy with "everything has gone to hell" I think you have to really do some work to explain why and how that happened.

And to those of you who argue that we need to move on beyond the Skywalkers and not focus on that legacy, I can see the appeal of that. I used to share that idea, too. The thing is, you can't move forward if you start by crapping all over the past. If your starting point invalidates everything - literally everything - that the last generation of heroes accomplished, you have to restore that legacy before you can leave it behind. I mean, you clearly don't have to, but restoring the Skywalker legacy is, I think, something that has to be done before my generation is going to be willing to leave it behind. At this point, the only way I can see that happening is Rey Skywalker.

Han, Luke, and Leia fixed the galaxy. Rather than introduce a new challenge for the next generation to overcome, JJ and Rian decided to just invalidate and erase those fixes. That has to be justified, and whatever fixes the galaxy this time needs to come from the OT heroes, even if indirectly through their inheritors in this next generation. Otherwise, you're just flinging poo at those of us who grew up with Luke, Leia, and Han, trashing our heroes just to make Mary Sue and Darth Emo seem more impressive.

RangerWickett said:

With the Emperor, the backstory we got was, "The Emperor has dissolved the Senate. The last remnant of the old republic is now gone."

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We got in more than that. We had a whole board meeting describing the governmental structure of the galaxy. We saw stormtroopers acting as police on remote planets. It was made very clear we were dealing with a rebellion against a galaxy-wide government.

Even just the words “Emperor” and “Senate” communicated a lot. They’re words we understand to mean things. Absent future information, “Supreme Leader” could just be like the guy who runs Scientology.

Water Bob said:

As to the suicide run of Vice Admiral Holdo (I keep thinking Hodo, from GoT), that's an expensive ship. It would be an expensive way to fight a war.

And, you would need the mass. You could develop smaller, fighter sized missiles with droid brains and hyperdrives to do what Holdo did, and there would be some damage. But, I don't think the damage would be devastating to the target. They might not even punch through a target vessel. Rather impacted on the surface, as we've seen with the Death Star and other vessels, like the A-Wing that suicides into the Executor's bridge in RotJ.

I wonder what the smallest limit it on a hyperspace capable craft? The size of a fighter? Smaller? Could hyperdrive missiles be used, or are missiles too small to house hyperdrives?

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I think the scene suggests that it’s a special circumstance, and I think mass+shields not at full on the FO ships solves any inconsistency.

In theEU, at least, hyperdrives wont fit on an A-wing. And obj-wan’s small ship needed a special ring.

doctorbadwolf said:

In theEU, at least, hyperdrives wont fit on an A-wing. And obj-wan’s small ship needed a special ring.

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Not sure where you got that bit about the A-Wing. They canonically have hyperdrive in RotJ, and in the EU they're one of the Rebels' primary long-range reconnaissance craft.

In WW2, Japan DID try to use a battleship as a kamikaze or at least a mobile fort - IJN Yamato, sent to Okinawa. It was sunk by overwhelming airpower before arriving, but took a record amount of punishment before sinking.

Suicide runs, intentional or not intentional (that A-Wing was not under the control of its pilot when it made the critical hit on Executor's bridge) usually involve a smaller faster more-maneuverable craft that can chase down a bigger clumsy target even if the target tries to swerve or dodge.
And do also cogitate on Millennium Falcon's "suicide run" in ESB that ended with Han shutting down all electronics and the Falcon clinging to the side of an Imperial Star Destroyer. In broad daylight - apparently Imperial sensors (and lookouts) only work when allowed by the power of plot.

I saw the movie last night, and largely liked it. It does not quite have the broad, mythic psudo-Campbellian strokes that the original trilogy had, but that could be considered quibbling. I'm not really trying to put to much logic into the fleet and battle tactics (that almost never works out with these type of movies), and I realize that such things always 'moved at the speed of plot', but the long, slow chase seemed particularly egregious in this case. They couldn't vector in another part of the fleet to head them off? Or jump a couple of star destroyers ahead of them?

The move also veered a little too much into the silly territory for me, but that is nothing new with Star Wars, going back to the Ewoks. I thought the whole 'parking violation' thing on the casino planet was particularly contrived. They couldn't just have an imperial, sorry, New Order agent spot them and get the authorities onto them? I did find the humor with Luke telling Rey to 'reach out' quite good, even though the side affect is that Rey seems far more advanced with the Force than she should be given her limited knowledge and training. I guess that's the price you pay when you have to compress such a story.

The more I think about it, the more I like Luke's whole 'Project Image' trick at the end. An appropriately epic thing for a jedi master to do without being totally over the top. Though I'm a little bit confused in the fact that he clasps hands with Leia and gave her Han's "fuzzy dice" from the Falcon, so it seems he could adjust how solid the image was to a degree; whereas when he fought Kylo Ren, he was merely an image without substance. In fact Kylo Ren finds the "dice" when he finally enters the Rebel base, and they disappear from his hand when Luke disapparates into nothingness and becomes one with the Force. Does that mean a sufficiently powerful jedi could have projected enough of an image to actually light saber duel with someone over a distance?

I thought Kylo Ren was not really a bad guy to match Dearth Vader in TFA, what with his indecisiveness and petty rages, but then, who is? It seemed they were setting him up to turn back to the light, but it seems that was more of smoke screen for the viewer, to bring about the big reveal here than anything. I'm not sure how I feel about that...Maybe he will turn about in the final movie, and Snoke will return, as with the fan-theory?

Water Bob said:

As to the suicide run of Vice Admiral Holdo (I keep thinking Hodo, from GoT), that's an expensive ship. It would be an expensive way to fight a war.

And, you would need the mass. You could develop smaller, fighter sized missiles with droid brains and hyperdrives to do what Holdo did, and there would be some damage. But, I don't think the damage would be devastating to the target. They might not even punch through a target vessel. Rather impacted on the surface, as we've seen with the Death Star and other vessels, like the A-Wing that suicides into the Executor's bridge in RotJ.

I wonder what the smallest limit it on a hyperspace capable craft? The size of a fighter? Smaller? Could hyperdrive missiles be used, or are missiles too small to house hyperdrives?

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We already know that fighters can house hyperdrives. Refer to the X-Wings as of ESB.

Water Bob said:

Early reviews by viewers are not good. Not good at all.

Critics love it. (I love it.)

Rotten Tomatoes has the reviews from Critics at 93%, but the reviews from viewers at 57%.

MetaCritic is similar. Metascore for Critics is 86. For viewers is 5!

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Surprise, the critics once again have the opposite opinion of the actual audiance.....
Usually works the other way around concerning action/sci-fi movies though.

One little clue that all is not as it should be with Luke at the end (that I spotted the second time through): When he faces off against his nephew, he is wielding the same lightsaber that, mere movie moments before, was split into two as Ben and Rey fought over it.