ST ST Criticism Discussion Thread

See - I don't think that works for those that love TLJ.

I put it in the "headcanon GOOOOD" when mentally jumping through hoops to justify these artistic directions, but "headcanon BAAAAAD" when showing why these artistic directions are the equivalent to 'getting lumps of coal in your x-mas stocking' category.

Which still begs the logistical question: "If the Holdo Maneuver wiped out the FO fleet and severely crippled the Supremacy, where on Endor's green earth did all the walkers and death star tech come from?!?!? Not to mention Kylo's flagship from TFA! Where the heck was that even docked?"

I'm still waiting for answers to THAT one! (that aren't headcanon GOOOD!)

 

Yeah I gotta be honest, I thought TLJ was unpleasant from the beginning, and I definitely think the visuals are played up more than they deserve. It was Luke’s big moment on Crait that had me thinking as I walked out the door that it wasn’t so bad, but that feeling didn’t last long.

At the end of TFA, I thought Achoo was beautiful and there was such an air of intrigue and adventure. TLJ destroyed that. Somehow Achoo looked less beautiful going all the way back to RJ’s released alternative ending right after TFA came out. At the end of TFA, Rey is almost in tears, and Luke looks sad, and kind. Worried. Then RJ’s little clip showed Luke looking bitter and Rey looking stoic. The setting felt darker. I didn’t understand how much that was foreshadowing what was to come, but I never liked it.

That’s not to say there aren’t any nice visuals to me. There are some beautiful space shots. I really love the trailer shot of the speeders on Crait, although the trailer shot is the only one that I really like from Crait, and the scene itself destroys the context for it. I do think the Holdo maneuver is both gorgeous and edited very well. I also think the deleted scene of the caretaker party looked great. Both Rey running on the beach and the party itself are my favorite Achoo visuals in the film. The shot of her standing in front of the waves is also very pretty. But man, the dark side hole in the ground is really ugly, so that tends to overshadow the wave shot because it’s right after. Rey in the rain by the falcon is very pretty. The trailer really got most of the best shots.

 

Good God you're right! I stand corrected (and humbled - but I still think TLJ is a cruddy SW movie ).

I checked out it's size on Wookiepedia and yes it is indeed massive. Plus it's compliments include: AT-ATs, AT-STs, Mega Class AT-ATs, 2 internally docked Star Destroyers, and Drop Ships.

No head canon was harmed in the making of this post. *

* but it was edited pretty badly and could've shown them landing on Crait instead of *poof*, they're here.

 

I don't care how big it is - it had big holes blown through it and the First Order is landing from it minutes later? If that is true, then what the hell did Holdo's Manuever even do then? Nothing. Well, saved Rey, Finn and Rose so I guess made sure it was 15 people alive at the end not 12.

The problem with this ginormous scale for the First Order and no one left in the Resistance is that if they were smart, the Resistance would pack it up and go home.

 

You know what? You're right @PendragonM !!

I got caught up in that Wookiepedia page and for a brief moment (very brief), I was digging SW in the way I used to.

Then shame on me, I started thinking about it all regarding TLJ and the holes started getting poked through it all over again.

A big one was how did they drop/land all that tech and stage their troops, walkers, death star tech, and TIEs before Rose and Finn got to the base? Correct me if I'm wrong but they flew into the door past the FO right? That's pretty disconnected on the screen...didn't they escape AFTER the Holdo Maneuver?

But as you stated, the biggest problem with it is that Holdo's move meant absolutely bupkiss. Those Resistance fighters all died for nothing during the 'space chase'.

 

Who knows when Finn, Rose and BB 8 got the ship and flew by? I mean obviously, they had to fly by the First Order to get to the door - how did they even FIND the door?
Another thing - how does Finn know that the First Order hates the Falcon? If they hate it for Starkiller, he's gone by then. If they hate it in general, why? It's been marooned for years - we have no idea how long. So, what, Kylo put in the First Order war manual "destroy this ship" when it's been gone for years?

I hate to say it, but frankly, the Resistance could have packed up everyone on D'Qar and left instead of blowing up Starkiller and come out ahead. Han alive, 400 members of the Resistance alive (and isn't that after they blow up all the bombers? Maybe they had closer to 1000?). The First Order still "reigns" so whatever they did at Starkiller basically means nothing outside of wounding Finn and killing Han. They could have bugged out, figured out a course of action against Starkiller, and sent Han and Chewie to get Luke (who would have come back with him). If you think about it, the only thing the Resistance did of note in TLJ is blow up one dreadnaught. Snoke's dead but Kylo did that so...yay?

 

Holdo's maneuver accomplished nothing in the end since the FO just shrugged off the kamikaze attack and went right back to what they were doing. Heck they even (conveniently) had the perfect types of equipment/weapons to break into a base like the one on Crait, and 99.99% of the people that Holdo "saved" died anyway not long after.

It's almost as if it was a "pretty visual" with little thought put into it besides that.

 

Yeah the FO is depicted as being absurdly ludicrously powerful/large in TLJ. They just shrug off losing SKB, a "fleet killer" Dreadnaught, AND the Supremacy, and like a dozen SD's like it's nothing and are on the verge of wiping out the Resistance like two days later, with the New Republic completely crumbling in record time as well. And they STILL have the resources to conquer the Galaxy in mere weeks. Even the Empire at it's peak didn't feel like ridiculously OOP large and unstoppable.

Also it contradicts TFA, where they were depicted as being a smaller almost terrorist group using hit and run tactics, with SKB being their big gambit. It's why, imo, TLJ feels more derivative of the OT than TFA does. Because TLJ basically turns the FO into the Empire 2.0 and the good guys in the Rebellion (they even flat out start calling themselves that) 2.0.

 

Another thing I was thinking of, the Invisible Hand in ROTS had a similar amount of damage to the Supremacy, and the most Anakin and Obi-Wan could hope for was a high speed crash landing that almost killed them. So, how did the Supremacy go through the atmosphere, safely go to an area where the walkers and the big gun?


Also, if they just had a mini Death Star sitting around, why didn't they innovate so that they could use it in a space battle?! It couldn't be that difficult to do, the film would be about 10 minutes if they did that, and there's no way the long range rule would apply for a freaking mini Death Star.

 

I seem to recall Holdo staring wild eyed at the viewscreen for long minutes as the First Order picked off transport after transport. Besides, however many people actually got down there? Only 12 of them make it onto the Falcon. Plus all the other Star Destroyers that manage to regroup in about ten minutes to offload a landing force on Crait. So, again, yay? Han could have packed more folks on the Falcon than that, the Resistance could have loaded up everyone else and they could have high tailed it off D'Qar at the end of TFA for all the good blowing up Starkiller did.

 

Yeah, that's just one of the many issues of the chase. The FO is so ridiculuosly powerful that the writers are forced to have them make something incredibly stupid to keep the Resistance alive.
More in the detail, we have Hux ordering the fighters to come back in order to be safe... from what precisely? The few cannons of the Raddus that btw had just lost its head of command?
And why didn't he send the fighters later to destroy the transports, the easiest target ever?

The Resistance, on the other hand, was also forced to do idiotic things in order for the chase to exist. We actually see that there are ships with hd on board, like the one used by Finn and Rose. Even assuming that they were not big enough to escape, why didn't they used them to search for help or at least go get more hyperfuel, instead of just waiting to reach Crait in the slowest possible way?

 

The Holdo move is both too powerful and not powerful enough.

It's visually the most devastating single attack ever shown in a SW movie, barring Death Star superweapons. It's completely devastating, crippling dozens of capital ships at the cost of one. Imagining that kind of attack during the Battle of Coruscant or Endor is a gamebreaker. If that kind of attack had been used, the battles would never have to take place in the way we see them.

At the same time as all that destruction, it has absolutely no effect on the plot, besides getting Finn and Rose out of a jam (a jam that BB-8 also helps them out of, further reducing the jump's effectiveness).

It doesn't appear to hobble the FO in any way during Act IV, and we've already seen them come back from devastating losses from the previous movie with Starkiller Base and the Dreadnought, neither of which even dented the FO's power.

So it's an overpowered move that would end every prior SW battle in seconds, while at the same time having almost no lasting effects on the plot.

 

Ackbar: It's a trap!
Other Cruiser Commander: I've got this.
*goes to lightspeed, destroys entire Imperial fleet*
Lando: It's not a trap anymore.
Nien Nunb: Heh heh heh heh heh heh.

 

In this case, literally instead of metaphorically.

 

The problem is that if they stay so vague about the resources of the FO, the feeling is that they intend to come up with some new huge ship every now and then until convenience will decide that the trilogy must end.
No victory of the Resistance is ever satisfactory 'cause we don't really know what they have accomplished for the larger picture.

 

Battles of self preservation actually mean that you want to end them MORE quickly, to end the threat SOONER. So the "Holdo maneuver" would make even more sense there. For example, during WWII the Japanese started ramping up the Kamikaze attacks later on in the war, when they were LOSING and fighting for survival.

Also the Battle of SKB is no more a "battle of self-preservation" than Yavin IV or Endor were.