We saw a Star War! Last Jedi spoiler thread

Re:Astrogation in Star Wars

This actually answers both why they had to have a map in TFA (instead of just final coordinates) AND why the 'hyper ahead of the fleeing Resistance ships and pincer them" didn't work.

So, as established in Ep 4, hyperdrive in Star Wars isn't a simple entering of coordinates. It's not just needing to know the destination, but also the path, because ships in Star Wars don't go into a hyperspace dimension, but instead are just going really fast through normal space. If there's a mass in the way, they get torn apart. Han sets this up in Ep 4 with Luke about how hard it is to jump to lightspeed without hitting a sun. So, to make a good jump, you have to know not only where you are and where you're going, exactingly, but also what path you're taking to get there. The path between systems is usually well known, having been previously plotted painstakingly by scouts, often millenia ago. The Rebellion (and, assumingly the Resistance) had 'secret' jump paths to out of the way locations that made it hard to follow them -- you might know where they went, but you also didn't know how they got there from here and you might have to go around a few jumps on pathways you knew. It's also why the Unexplored Regions are so, well, unexplored -- safe jump lanes haven't been scouted yet.

This is what makes the hyperdrive tracker such a huge deal -- it allows a pursuit ship to not only track where you went, but also the path you took to get there.

So, to wrap back around, this is why they needed the map in TFA -- they might know which system Skywalker was in, but they didn't know how to get there. And, it's why it wasn't useful to attempt a blind or unscouted short jump ahead to cut off the Resistance when you could just wait out the stern chase until the inevitable happened.

Now, all of that said, it was a HUGE failing in the movie to not reinforce this -- adding a few lines of dialogue to the Finn/Rose technobabble scene discussing the tracker would have been a perfect moment to do so.

In fact, to take that last a bit further, most of the issues with this movie could have been solved by just expanding the scope of a few scenes to show that things are bigger or remind folks about how things work in Star Wars. The issue with the 1st Order seeming to be so small could have been easily rectified by using Stormtroopers in place of the guards on the casino planet, and having the quick scenes where the guards play cards or talk to residents be a bit more fraught with tension about their presence/imposing order. That simple switch would have set the fact that the 1st Order was running the show and not just the handful of ships onscreen soooo much better. I understand why the scriptwriters and director missed this -- they know how big the 1st Order is -- but they should have stepped back and checked to make sure that their understanding was properly passed on in the movie.

Really, the lack of scope for so many things was the big fail for me in a movie I otherwise adored. Even space Leia would have been helped a great deal by one of the people watching her fly back calling out 'She's doing it again! Get the door!" That would, with very little effort, establish that Leia had been doing silly forcy survival things for awhile, and helped save that scene.

Ryujin said:

Maybe, maybe not. No idea if the dreadnought had any more range on its weapons than did the destroyers. We do know, however, that he sacrificed literally every bomber they had available, while acting against orders.

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The Destroyers weren't what was bombarding the Resistance ships -- it was the Sovereign with it's similar-to-the-dreadnought class cannon. They were shown on-screen firing at least once, and never from the Destroyers. I figure the Destroyers were just hanging out as escorts while the Sovereign did the work. We already know that a Rebellion-era Cruiser could go toe to toe with a Destroyer, perhaps a Resistance-era one was even more of a match? In which case, why engage with smaller ships when it's just a matter of time.

We keep considering that the 1st Order military is incompetent when, in reality, their tactics are very straightforward and make sense so long as the longshot risks the Resistance takes don't strangely pay off with huge dividends. There were no fighters but the one when the dreadnought was firing on the Resistance base, and they did launch fighters as soon as the single fighter began engaging -- after using a bolted on afterburner to close from outside of engagement range to point-blank in moments. Should they have flushed their fighters as soon as they hit system? Probably, but we're armchair quarterbacking from the safety of our own far, far away galaxy. The tactics on display there weren't egregious, even if not paranoid enough.

The stern chase made even more sense, tactically. It was a done deal, and even worked exactly as intended. Had the Sovereign not started blasting the fleeing transports and instead pounded the Cruiser first before engaging the transports, the kamikaze run wouldn't have been possible. But, again, the astrogation invovled in setting up that jump and disengaging the mass sensors was a pretty huge undertaking -- Holdo must have been near Solo level good at by-the-seat-of-the-pants astrogation.

I generally liked the movie. I need to view it again to really "get" it.

What I liked:
-Luke being flip and indifferent to Rey nicely mirrored his own first encounter with Yoda.
-The Jedi teaching elements worked very well. The "failure is part of life" message worked well for the second act of the new trilogy. I liked the return of Yoda to knock Luke down a peg. I like Luke's "obtaining enlightenment" death where he became one with the force. I liked Luke explaining the force to Rey is a way that felt more akin to Ben Kenobi's ANH and Yoda's ESB explanations, and less like cold clinical science like the force is explained in the prequels.

What I did not like:
-I felt Laura Dern's character was completely unneeded and forgettable, especially since they gave her a hero's death when I did not feel at all invested in her. Meanwhile, underdeveloped fan favorite Ackbar got unceremoniously killed off. Everything Dern's character did could have been done by Ackbar and made for a much more memorable send-off with a character that audiences could have invested in.

Stuff that I didn't mind but that could have been better:
-I felt the Finn/Rose subplot was somewhat weak.
-I felt hyperspacing into an enemy fleet is a bit overpowered and would be a standard tactic with unmanned craft if feasible.
-Too much from TFA got set aside and forgotten. I would still like to know where Snoke came from and why he was seeking Rey. I would like to know how Luke's lightsaber from Cloud City ended up at Maz's waiting for Rey. Also, what happened to the Knights of Ren; wasn't there a whole bunch of baddies when Luke's training temple burned down?
-No amazingly memorable space battles. At least not on the level of RotS, RO, ANH, RotJ, or TFA.

neobolts said:

Meanwhile, underdeveloped fan favorite Ackbar got unceremoniously killed off.

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Erik Bauersfeld died last year.

Olgar Shiverstone said:

Oh, I get it.

But staying out there at that distance for that long, then flying back, just broke my suspension of disbelief.

If instead, she'd just caught herself on the edge of the bridge, clawing her way back, then used the Force to get the rest of the way -- dramatic, you're not sure if she makes it or not -- I'd have been cheering. But the flying nun act was just lazy and dumb.

There's a similar scene in one of the Wraith Squadron books, and it's much, much better done.

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Re: suspension of disbelief, I’m just saying, the entire scene is realistic if you ignore the non existence of Force Powers. She wasnt out there any longer than a normal person could hold their breath, the physics checks out, etc. maybe her opening her eyes would have been a problem, but even then we know Jedi can do that from Clone Wars, first season, with PLo Koon and Ashoka.

IMO, the scene didn’t need to be gripping. It did exactly what it meant to do, and it did it well.

pukunui said:

Yeah, that whole scene *looked* terrible ... but, c'mon, this is Carrie Fisher we're talking about here. She probably thought it was hilarious. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she agreed to it (or even suggested it) as a way of giving diehard fans the middle finger or something.

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I’m still confused as to how or why it “looks terrible”.

I'm trying to be as gracious as I can but I was actually bored watching this movie. And this is coming from someone who really enjoyed TFA and Rogue One.

I can't be entertained by heroes who don't undergo any kind of real change or new understanding.

There were some really cool scenes. Those shots from the suicide cruiser at the end were beautiful, but those scenes weren't enough for me to forget that this movie just throws storytelling right out the airlock and doesn't bother force-flying it back in.

Olgar Shiverstone said:

Oh, I get it.

But staying out there at that distance for that long, then flying back, just broke my suspension of disbelief.

If instead, she'd just caught herself on the edge of the bridge, clawing her way back, then used the Force to get the rest of the way -- dramatic, you're not sure if she makes it or not -- I'd have been cheering. But the flying nun act was just lazy and dumb.

There's a similar scene in one of the Wraith Squadron books, and it's much, much better done.

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pukunui said:

Yeah, that whole scene *looked* terrible ... but, c'mon, this is Carrie Fisher we're talking about here. She probably thought it was hilarious. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she agreed to it (or even suggested it) as a way of giving diehard fans the middle finger or something.

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Joker said:

I'm trying to be as gracious as I can but I was actually bored watching this movie. And this is coming from someone who really enjoyed TFA and Rogue One.

I can't be entertained by heroes who don't undergo any kind of real change or new understanding.

There were some really cool scenes. Those shots from the suicide cruiser at the end were beautiful, but those scenes weren't enough for me to forget that this movie just throws storytelling right out the airlock and doesn't bother force-flying it back in.

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I think we watched different movies.

Every main character underwent significant character growth.

That was like...literally most of the movie.

Joker said:

I'm trying to be as gracious as I can but I was actually bored watching this movie. And this is coming from someone who really enjoyed TFA and Rogue One.

I can't be entertained by heroes who don't undergo any kind of real change or new understanding.

There were some really cool scenes. Those shots from the suicide cruiser at the end were beautiful, but those scenes weren't enough for me to forget that this movie just throws storytelling right out the airlock and doesn't bother force-flying it back in.

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We must have seen different movies -- the character development was pretty much front and center for all the characters.

Finn went from a selfish coward that only cared about Rey to someone filled with rage against the 1st Order to someone willing to sacrifice themselves unhesitatingly to help Luke at the end. He learned that doing it for love was better than doing it for hate.

Poe went from hothead pilot that only cared about blowing up the Order regardless of the casualties to a real leader that recognized keeping his people alive was part of the goal, not just blowing up the Order -- that retreat was a better tactic than Pyrrhic victories.

Rey went from someone uncertain of her place in the galaxy, someone who couldn't let her past go, to someone that embraced her own past, her own failures, her own faults, and decided to strive to be better because of it.

Kylo had the opposite journey -- from someone who knew his past and was conflicted by it to someone that decided to to burn it all down and abandon it all. He couldn't face his failures and faults, so he burned them away.

Luke learned from his failures and re-entered the galaxy, addressed his failures, and then did something about it.

Change was the biggest part of this movie -- lots and lots of character development that was hammered on over and over. They even brought Yoda in to put a big stamp of 'pay attention' to the central themes of that development.

No, we didn't see different movies. We just have differing opinions on what significant means. Barring some minor changes, the characters and the story are still in the same position as they were before the movie started.
Speaking of story. I personally feel that a convoluted chase throughout the film is a poor way to create tension.

Ovinomancer said:

In fact, to take that last a bit further, most of the issues with this movie could have been solved .

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by better communication among everyone.