The Unified Star Wars Thread

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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby DoglovingJim » Sun Apr 22, 2018 11:34 am

Grimstone wrote:TBF, Rey had spent her entire life becoming familiar with spaceships and using a melee weapon for self-defense so really Luke is the one who had little to no training/experience compared to her.

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She was pretty much using her light-saber like she fiddled around with that staff thing (not to mention she wasn't solely reliant on light-saber techniques, she also did a bit of grappling and kicked Kylo as well), whereas Luke started off with a rifle instead of any form of melee weapon didn't he? And in terms of close quarters combat he didn't show much experience with the sand-people (probably because he only met them because he took a risk to get R2D2 instead of staying within the confines of his farm) so it was like he had to start from scratch.
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Whereas as a scavenger in the thick of it Rey probably needed to use close quarters combat quite a bit otherwise she'd either get killed or starve to death since she can't sell anything.

And regarding what I felt they implied in TLJ is that there must always be a balance to the force, so technically one could also say that Rey had a double dose of force abilities during TFA. Considering at the time Luke cut himself off from the force whereas the dark side was being used by both Snoke and Kylo Ren (and who knows what happened to the other knights of Ren), killing Han Solo made the dark darker making Rey over-powered.



Continuing this train of thought...
This can be compared with Luke Skywalker who grew in his force ability as his Jedi masters passed away, with him being relatively stronger in connection with the force when first Ben died (enabling him to make the impossible shot) and then when Yoda died he was able to beat Darth Vader (naturally Luke would only grow stronger afterwards but that was because he didn't tap into the force fully and also because Darth Vader wasn't fully dark, but instead had more of a struggle between the light and darkness of the force so Luke himself didn't become overpowered with the light side of the force). Then Darth Vader and the Emperor died and Luke became legendarily stronger, being able to tap into his emotions and anger but not fall into the dark side of the force, he became the balance.

But as he begun focusing solely on the old Jedi texts to increase his connection to the force, the balance between light and dark was once again shaken and therefore Snoke and Kylo Ren were needed. And when Luke cut himself off from the force completely in the vacuum Rey was needed.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby Marcuse » Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:43 pm

I'm sort of okay with Rey being able to fly the Falcon well. Based on her knowledge of the ship and how Unkar Plutt modified it which is delivered in TFA it's reasonable to infer from the movie that she had prior experience with the ship, and knew enough about the decision to install a particular part to know it was a bad idea. Adding that to the known piloting ability latent Force users seem to have means I don't find her ability to fly the Falcon well (and being surprised at it, again in the movie) that bothersome.

Re lightsaber fighting. Ask yourself a question: why does nobody ever complain about Finn wielding a lightsaber? Yes I know if you look hard enough in the bowels of the internet you can find someone who does, but generally it's uncontroversial in popular opinion. Why?

One reason why said internet types might object is that lightsabers have been said to be so dangerous to the user that only someone trained to use the Force can adequately fight with one because without the predictive ability of Force awareness they're about as likely to cut off their own arm as they are the enemy. But let's forget that for now and focus on the difference between Rey and Finn in TFA.

Finn is a bumbling fool who's given a lightsaber to give to someone else. He uses the weapon in an extreme moment because he has literally nothing else to hand and gets his ass handed to him by FN-2189. He then ignites it again when he's standing up for Rey, and it's important for his character that he's gone from someone who wants to run away and not fight the First Order to someone who'll stand and risk death for his friend. Let's ignore the backtracking in TLJ (suddenly coward, suddenly CQC skillz). In this second fight he is left near death from a grievous wound. In both fights he's untrained and incapable and loses badly, his heroism is still standing his ground even though he knows this will happen the second time.

Rey, by contrast, holds the lightsaber twice. The first time is in Maz's place where she has spoopy visions and immediately runs away abandoning it. The second is the faux hero moment where she grabs the lightsaber and uses it to beat Kylo Ren and seriously injure him. She has literally never held a saber by this point, and has zero experience with a weapon she didn't even think was real until that day (she thinks Luke is a myth remember, though she also knows a shitton about Jedi history to argue with Luke in TLJ???). It is true that she has close combat experience, and demonstrates this in TFA. However, in pre-existing lore a lightsaber is the most exotic of exotic weapons, requiring years of specialist training to use to its full potential (remember Luke was never a fabulous duellist) and generally considered a weapon of Force users, of which she has little to no training either. There's an argument that she ripped some knowledge from Kylo's mind when she bested him during his failed interrogation, but that's really a fan theory which doesn't have support from the content of the movie.

So Rey being proficient with the lightsaber the second she holds it is unbelievable because she has zero training, and there's no evidence that combat skill with other weapons is in any way transferable. Finn gets away with it because he loses every time and badly. He's delivered as being nothing more than a plucky amateur and it works because of that, but Rey is just insta good for no reason and it feels unlike the rest of the source material.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby gisambards » Sun Apr 22, 2018 9:31 pm

I think a problem with the new trilogy is actually highlighted in this debate: the canonical explanation for why Rey can fly the Falcon so well and beat Kylo is almost certainly just "the Force". Because the Force is definitively just a plot device for whatever the filmmakers want to happen next to happen. It doesn't have clear rules or anything.

To be clear, I think it should have rules, just as any fictional form of magic should - it's extremely cheap and lazy to give your characters powers that can get them out of any situation however you want. But frankly, post TLJ, even that simplistic a level of cohesive world-building is more than I'd expect from the makers of Star Wars right now.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby Grimstone » Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:06 am

How I would rank jedi protagonists in order of training/experience: adult Anakin, Rey, Luke, young Anakin
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:13 am

See I don't know why Luke comes into these discussions so much when he didn't fight a single person with a lightsaber in the first film, used it as a utility for 90% of the second, and got his damn hand cut off in the last 10% because he obviously wasn't very good at it.

Why do people insist on comparing Luke after he decides to call himself a Jedi and was trained by Yoda and Ben and trained himself to Rey before she even wants to be one?

And yeah, I mentioned how videogamey the force is now, with Luke using his 60 levels in jedi to use force project, and rey arbitrarily learning the mind trick because of the XP she got in the forest despite not even believing in the force or meditating or being clear minded or fucking anything. This especially conflicts with them trying to avoid the prequels' midichlorian stuff by making the force a religion again. Except what kind of shaolin bullshit works for people who aren't buddhist monks? it fights its own characterization of force users so hard. Also it flips the dark and light sides. Snoke wants a disspassionate dark sider and yoda and luke and the movie seem to want an emotional light sider. Which would be fine if they bothered to point out something changed. It'd be a neat story, at the very least.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby Marcuse » Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:57 pm

Grimstone wrote:How I would rank jedi protagonists in order of training/experience: adult Anakin, Rey, Luke, young Anakin


I would completely disagree with this ranking. Assuming "young Anakin" is The Clone Wars era adolescent Anakin (because what would be the point in including a 9 year old child on the list?) then I would put it as:

Adult Anakin (ROTS)
Young Anakin (AOTC)
Old Luke (TLJ)
Luke (AHN - ROTJ)
Rey (TFA and TLJ)

Adult Anakin has been trained for two thirds of his life by Jedi Masters. Young Anakin has begun that training and has a few years of full time continuous study under his belt. Old Luke has a patchy collection of teaching from a pair of bitter old suicidal Jedi Masters who're more interested in throwing him at Vader than they are making him a spiritual master and whatever he's managed to pick up from writings since then. OT Luke even at the end really only has that specifically focused training from Yoda so he and ghost Ben can throw him at Vader. Rey has...well possibly some knowledge of the Force she roughly grabbed out of Kylo Ren's head, and the three lessons Luke offers to teach her, plus some idle lightsaber swinging on a rock once.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby Grimstone » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:19 pm

Marcuse wrote:what would be the point in including a 9 year old child on the list?


He built an android, pod raced, and destroyed a droid control ship. 9 year old Anakin may be on par with young Luke now that I think about it.

old luke >= vader > adult anakin >= kylo > rey > young luke >= young anakin
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby Marcuse » Wed May 02, 2018 11:47 pm



This is a great, if a little over-explained, rationale why TLJ was poorly received. Personally I think I agree with the premise that if they had made Rey join with Kylo and actually follow through on the new direction, the movie would have been miles better. It's such a shame they fell back on the old Jedi/Sith dichotomy, and I actually find myself having a lot of sympathy for the overall theme of what Rian Johnson tried to do.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby Aquila89 » Wed May 23, 2018 9:50 pm

Marcuse wrote:This is a great, if a little over-explained, rationale why TLJ was poorly received.


It wasn't poorly received. It got very good reviews from professional critics and made huge amounts of money. There's a loud minority that hated it. I belong to that minority, but I know that it isn't a majority.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Thu May 24, 2018 12:06 pm

Grimstone wrote:
Marcuse wrote:what would be the point in including a 9 year old child on the list?


He built an android, pod raced, and destroyed a droid control ship. 9 year old Anakin may be on par with young Luke now that I think about it.

old luke >= vader > adult anakin >= kylo > rey > young luke >= young anakin


This is such a weird way of looking at stuff. You don't see what the results are when you're looking at how much of a Mary Sue something is, you see what they did to achieve it.

Anakin didn't build an android, he rebuilt one out of scrap parts while working in a shop that sold scrap and ship parts. He destroyed a Droid Control Ship by accident, much like JarJar's giant blue ball. JarJar's not a Mary Sue either. As for Pod Racing, he didn't exactly win it by being the best, everyone else killed each other.
This is even if you take a children's movie, which have a huuuge history of making child characters overpowered because seeing children die is terrible for people tonally, completely seriously. Taken without the seriousness, it's complaining that the comic relief and child characters are allowed to do stuff that impacts the plot in a children's movie.

As for Young Luke DESTROYED THE DEATH STAR; He didn't do anything special in destroying the death star. He fired the final shot of thousands. He didn't even do the fucking trench run alone, nor was he the first person to actually hit the target. What you're complaining about is the protagonist of the film being able to make one shot on target at the very end of a large fight involving multiple people helping him, a ton of whom are explicitly shown as better than him, two of whom are given the clear to take the shot he took, one of whom makes the shot he took.

This is not even close to equivalent to a mostly grounded junkyard scavenger doing stunts in the air while a janitor picks off three brand new TIEs with ace pilots in a 60 year old ship.

It's not close to a prisoner under torture obtaining force powers that have previously been limited entirely to masters, and heck, literally used to illustrate a character taking on the mantle of jedi knight in the final arc of a three episode story. Leia was tortured too, and she had force powers. She didn't learn shit from being tortured. Darth Vader didn't even manage to detect she's a force sensitive.

It's not close to beating a trained dark side user in a one on one lightsaber fight, even if he got shot once. I mean, it's an OK excuse, but it carries the implication that Jedi are fucking useless in a battle situation if they don't have the CON points to be able to fight one untrained girl after being shot once.
On second thought, Darth Vader's a fucking robot who can barely breathe, forget fight well with a lightsaber, that excuse is weaker than it looks. Dark Side users are /better/ at dealing with injury than light side users.

Anakin doesn't need training from a droid technician to be able to rebuild a robot, random rural folks build massive projects from old tech IRL all the friggin time. Anakin doesn't need to have pilot or jedi training to be able to shoot the droid ship when in that same fight he has to adjust his helmet once because he couldn't see from it and lands in a droid ship by accident. Like, it's obviously not a serious victory on the level of the death star. Attack of the Clones doesn't elevate him to a fucking child prodigy or war hero. He's still just an angsty teen padawan in that one, if you didn't notice despite the ability of George Lucas to write things in the most obvious way possible.

Luke doesn't need special pilot training to make one shot on target through the magic power of belief. He's not given special consideration in Empire for it either, he's not the fucking hope of the rebellion. They fucking leave him to die on Hoth until Han decides to go looking for him, if you didn't notice.

Rey does need force training to do a mind trick. She does need lightsaber training to weild a lightsaber. If 9 year old Anakin had been using mind control instead of one stupid force pull, or teenage Luke had been fighting dark jedi with his lightsaber or using his magic to move the missile instead of just aiming it (normal pilots were fully capable of making the shot), you'd have a point about their lack of training.

As it stands, child anakin never weilded a lightsaber or used any force powers where it didn't make sense, teen anakin kept losing his lightsaber even if he was good at it (which he isn't, he loses a fucking hand to Dooku). Luke didn't use a lightsaber for any fight until the end of empire, where he loses a hand, and the middle of Jedi, where he's explictly coded by the story as someone at the end of what training he could manage, outside of learning more on his own (and redeeming Vader in the process). Luke's first use of the force is blocking the remote's blaster shots, which he does once, after multiple times failing at it. His second is aiming without a targeting computer. It's so OP that normal X Wing Pilots are expected to do the same thing. Are normal Rebellion people expected to defeat an injured Kylo Ren? If they were, then it'd make sense comparing Rey to Luke.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby Aquila89 » Thu May 24, 2018 4:46 pm

A Combustible Lemon wrote:As for Young Luke DESTROYED THE DEATH STAR; He didn't do anything special in destroying the death star. He fired the final shot of thousands. He didn't even do the fucking trench run alone, nor was he the first person to actually hit the target. What you're complaining about is the protagonist of the film being able to make one shot on target at the very end of a large fight involving multiple people helping him, a ton of whom are explicitly shown as better than him, two of whom are given the clear to take the shot he took, one of whom makes the shot he took.


What? Who else made the shot? I looked it up, only one pilot other than Luke managed to actually fire proton torpedoes, and those missed the exhaust port. I always thought that the exhaust port was actually impossibly small to hit under those conditions and Luke only managed to hit it because he turned off the targeting system and used the Force instead.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Thu May 24, 2018 4:55 pm

The first one dies before he takes the shot, the second one hits the port but doesn't manage to make it into the reactor. Gold Leader and Red Leader IIRC. Luke is the third person cleared, and the second to make it, and the first to successfully destroy the death star.

If it was an impossibly small target, it'd be incredibly stupid to waste two squadrons of X-Wings on it, unless they read the script, tbh. Easier to run like they did on Hoth.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby Aquila89 » Thu May 24, 2018 5:18 pm

When the Empire attacked the base on Hoth, they didn't have a Death Star. If they had, they would not have bothered with walkers. They just would've blown up the planet. I think there was no time for evacuation on Yavin, so they made this desperate, last-ditch attack, hoping that someone might hit the target out of sheer luck.

Anyway, I agree with your main point, that Luke didn't destroy the Death Star alone. If Han hadn't arrived in the last minute to knock out Darth Vader's TIE fighter, Luke would've been killed before making the shot.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Thu May 24, 2018 5:24 pm

Sure, but in essence the walkers were a few hours away from destroying the base, same as the death star was a few hours away from destroying the planet. It'd be a defeat either way, even if the Death Star solves the second situation in a way it wouldn't solve the first.
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Re: The Unified Star Wars Thread

Postby gisambards » Thu May 24, 2018 6:17 pm

A Combustible Lemon wrote:If it was an impossibly small target, it'd be incredibly stupid to waste two squadrons of X-Wings on it, unless they read the script, tbh. Easier to run like they did on Hoth.


I agree with your main point about Luke, but I think it makes sense that they send the X-wings (even if they probably should have evacuated all but a skeleton ground control team from Yavin) - they do want the Death Star destroyed, the only method they know of requires fighters, they happen to have two squadrons of some of their best fighter pilots on hand, and opportunities to strike the Death Star would probably be pretty rare in future if they'd just retreated then.
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