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Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Claudette Savagely said:
It destroyed every escort destroyer and cut the flagship in half, and whilst they were able to muster a ground attack force it consisted of:
  • about 20 TIEs/TIE SFs
  • roughly 11 to 13 ATM6s plus possible embarked infantry
  • 2 modernised (head seemed to be updated) AT-ATs, also with possible embarked infantry
  • 1 ram cannon
  • 2 armed prime movers for same
  • 1 shuttle
  • 2 incompetent egomaniacs
Given the sheer size of the Supremacy and the number of destroyers in the formation, they should have been able to drown the redoubt in embarked heavy metal and bodies, and yet they were only able to muster just over twice as many AFVs as Veers had at Hoth, a siege engine, and a small CAP which the Falcon blew the fuck out of on its own.

Holdo was able to arrange this inside of half a minute at most, and there's nothing in dialogue or Dern's performance to indicate that this was technically challenging. A droid should, given the capabilities of machines like the R series, have no trouble whatsoever.

Sure, the rebellion mk. whatever probably couldn't do this to kill a line destroyer, but for a HVT? It's absolutely worth it.

And that's not getting into the probable efficacy of droid-driven purpose built ramships fielded by groups like the Separatists, who loved cheap mass produced crap and droid intelligence in equal measure.

Why weren't they doing this? The movie as-is doesn't give us a credible reason to suppose that they couldn't, because the Supremacy couldn't even kill the Raddus after firing on it continuously for 12 hours or something. Your missiles need shields, sure, but what's a penetration aid between friends?
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Well that comes back to a bigger question of warfare in Star Wars, doesn't it? Why aren't droids used exclusively in combat ever since the prequels showed they make viable war machines? There's nothing in there to explain why the Empire prefers normal human troops over, say, clone soldiers. There's no reason they shouldn't be able to do those things - and no reason given why they don't. Nothing in the films specifically, anyway.

Like, I hate to use a "what about"ism here but this isn't the first time Star Wars has shown off something that probably should've been seen before. If you can accept it in the other films then there's little reason in condemning TLJ for it here. If you can't, then at least you're acknowledging that the same gaps of logic exist in other entries, which is all I really need.
changeling said:
And the only established characteristic of Sue Rey is that she can do anything, so it would be hard to believe that she can't do that one.

Overall, I liked the movie, despite the bombs falling down in the zero g and everything getting sillier and less logical from there. Pew Pew! Star wars! More illogical buttons and switches to push in accordance with plot requirments! Pew Pew!
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What, in your mind, makes Rey a Sue? I'll wait as long as needed to let you formulate your excuses so I can rip them to pieces.

Enthrall me with your acumen.
 
We know from TFA and Rogue One that you need to time your Hyperspace Jumps carefully to avoid going splat. TLJ shows us that hyperspeed ramming can work, but all the other films show us that it is not something that is done regularly.

Taking all this together, the Audience can determine that the Holdo Maneuver isn't something that can be done reliably
 
Spartan Altego said:
What, in your mind, makes Rey a Sue? I'll wait as long as needed to let you formulate your excuses so I can rip them to pieces.

Enthrall me with your acumen.
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Name one character trait of hers that isn't "good at everything and pure of heart". Seriously, try. Enthrall me with your acumen. I'll wait as long as needed to let you formulate your excuses so I can rip them to pieces.

She mastered flight, force skills, how to operate and repair antique ships she never seen before, and beat trained Jedi-types at lightsaber and Force combat,all while having no access to any of basis of those skills in her improvished life on Jakku.

Every good character loves/trust her. Resistance trusts her with a sensitive mission within 5 minutes of meeting her. Leia hugs her instead of Chewbacca when she hears about Han's death.

I could go one, but I think you are sufficiently enthralled.
 
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Mechasaurian said:
Like, the hyperspace ram? It's visually spectacular, it's a bold first for mainstream visual SF, and it cements Admiral Holdo as one of my favourite characters in Star Wars. But it raises the question of why everyone doesn't use it all the time and provides no answers. Why didn't the Rebellion destroy the Empire by strapping hyperdrives to barely functional junkers and blowing the Imperial ships to kingdom come?

We and the EU can probably fanwank an explanation. But the fact that the writers do not seem to have put in the effort themselves is...frustrating.
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They kinda do though? In the movie as soon as the ship starts turning one of the officers mentions that it's heading towards them, but Hux tells them to ignore it and focus on the small fry. Even when they say that it's accelerating for a hyperjump there's a moment before Hux says to focus on it. And neither of the other two ships were able to be used that way. So it's a desperation tactic that requires a certain size of ship and can presumably be countered by the other side(in this case the counter would still benefit Holdo as she wants to draw their fire from the transports, but that's not going to be the case generally). I


Also, while no movie directly answers that question, Rogue One does show Rebel ships accelerating to hyperspace and then hitting Vader's ship and breaking up on it. We don't know what exactly makes these two situations different, but we can easily say that their are differences (the ships are different, technology might have changed, quite likely when they collided changed, etc). Or in TFA where the planet has a shield that can apparently withstand the ram. So the movies aren't directly telling us why this wouldn't be standard practice, but if we are interested in analyzing the films then there would seem to be some information available.
 
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Cosar said:
Also, while no movie directly answers that question, Rogue One does show Rebel ships accelerating to hyperspace and then hitting Vader's ship and breaking up on it. We don't know what exactly makes these two situations different, but we can easily say that their are differences (the ships are different, technology might have changed, quite likely when they collided changed, etc).
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Point of order, the only ship that actually collides with Vader's Star Destroyer is a transport that hadn't yet started accelerating to lightspeed--it just veers off and doesn't quite make it. The rest either jump before he shows up or break off when he does.

Battlefront 2 has a short victory cutscene for the Empire on Fondor's multiplayer map where a Star Destroyer drops out of lightspeed on top of a blockade runner and crushes it, but that's a non-canon multiplayer game.
 
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As far as that goes, there's the immediate, obvious answer of "every time you do it you have to destroy an incredibly expensive ship" which is, you know, a pretty huge drawback.
 
Jace911 said:
Point of order, the only ship that actually collides with Vader's Star Destroyer is a transport that hadn't yet started accelerating to lightspeed--it just veers off and doesn't quite make it. The rest either jump before he shows up or break off when he does.

Battlefront 2 has a short victory cutscene for the Empire on Fondor's multiplayer map where a Star Destroyer drops out of lightspeed on top of a blockade runner and crushes it, but that's a non-canon multiplayer game.
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Huh. I thought otherwise, but on checking your're correct.
Voikirium said:
As far as that goes, there's the immediate, obvious answer of "every time you do it you have to destroy an incredibly expensive ship" which is, you know, a pretty huge drawback.
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Presumably the answer for that would be that the ships would be specially made to be used this way. They'd be expensive, sure, but so are things like Anti-Ship Ballistic/cruise missiles irl but they're still useful. For that to be the deciding factor the determining factor would be the cost of a hyperdrive, Hull, and Droid pilot are, and we know that those things aren't out of bounds for government organizations. So there needs to be some other kind of limiter.
 
Voikirium said:
As far as that goes, there's the immediate, obvious answer of "every time you do it you have to destroy an incredibly expensive ship" which is, you know, a pretty huge drawback.
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The immediate, obvious answer is "if you started working out details of everything, the Star Wars tech trivially allow for swarms of faster-and-better-than-human-drone combatants and (near-)perfect targeting systems; thus none of it fight scenes make any sense. But we are drawn to cool, dumb and epic battles and human drama, so we suspend our disbelieve and enjoy the film without thinking too hard."
 
changeling said:
Name one character trait of hers that isn't "good at everything and pure of heart".
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You think "Go straight to the Dark Side and try to kill Kylo Ren on sight without hesitation" Rey is pure of heart?
changeling said:
She mastered flight, force skills, how to operate and repair antique ships she never seen before, and beat trained Jedi-types at lightsaber and Force combat,all while having no access to any of basis of those skills in her improvished life on Jakku.
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Rey's a mediocre pilot, has never even shown off something as rudimentary as Force assisted acrobatics, helped install the modifications to the Falcon, and has never beaten anyone who was actually trying to kill her except two Praetorian Guard, which she had significant difficulty with. Try actually watching the movies next time.
 
Ser_Serendipity said:
You think "Go straight to the Dark Side and try to kill Kylo Ren on sight without hesitation" Rey is pure of heart?

Rey's a mediocre pilot, has never even shown off something as rudimentary as Force assisted acrobatics, helped install the modifications to the Falcon, and has never beaten anyone who was actually trying to kill her except two Praetorian Guard, which she had significant difficulty with. Try actually watching the movies next time.
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Seen it today. In order: she didn't turned to dark side, wtf? She did try to redeem Kylo Ren. Sure she is medicore pilot, it's why she out-fly two T-fighter pilots without co-pilot in the Millenium Falcon. She did beat Kylo - even if he only wanted to disarm her, which, frankly, is open to interpretation. She literally says, she will fix Falcon and fix it in a way that makes Han goes "what did you do.. huh?"
I have clips of everything above, and you.. don't. Sure you want to be snappy about watching the movies?
 
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Speaking of Rey's helmet, the EU materials apparently imply she took her name from the rebel pilot's name written on it.
 
changeling said:
I have clips of everything above, and you.. don't. Sure you want to be snappy about watching the movies?
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I don't need clips to deal with someone like you, lol. Rey doesn't "outfly" anyone: both the TIE's stay right on her ass until the very end, when one of them fucks up and the Force gives her the instinct to flip the Falcon to line up a shot for Finn to take out the other. The only reason she survives is because the Falcon is way more durable, especially considering how many things she crashed into. And she "beat" Kylo when he was exhausted, injured, and completely torn up inside (as Snoke calls out in The Last Jedi), and even then, she didn't beat him because she had any skill with a lightsaber: she drew heavily on the Dark Side, took advantage of his fading stamina, and grappled him into a position where she could land a solid hit on his face. The same goes for her fight with the Praetorians, where she steadily gets worn down until eventually being stalemated by her final opponent, which she only manages to kill with a bit of instinctual Trakata.
Nobody said:
Speaking of Rey's helmet, the EU materials apparently imply she took her name from the rebel pilot's name written on it.
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Damn, that's cool.
 
changeling said:
No need to be passive-aggressive, just say it openly.
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I'm not being passive aggressive, I'm just not very concerned when talking to film-illiterate folks like yourself. It's not like I'm actually going to change your mind or anything: anyone who's so obviously attached to their own imagination isn't going to be convinced by me, or anyone else for that matter. I can't say something like "Watch the movie" because you tried that, but your ability to comprehend it was too low to actually understand what you were seeing. What's there to do, in the face of that?
 
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Ser_Serendipity said:
I'm not being passive aggressive, I'm just not very concerned when talking to film-illiterate folks like yourself. (...) . I can't say something like "Watch the movie" because you tried that, but your ability to comprehend it was too low to actually understand what you were seeing. What's there to do, in the face of that?
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You made me laugh, have a funny.
 
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