The E wrote:I do get where you and Imaginos are coming from: You both expect a story's universe to be somewhat independent and unconnected from the stories told in it. You expect there to be an underlying ruleset for the universe that is to some extent set in stone; every story must play by the same rules because the universe doesn't change no matter whether you're telling a story about a lone bounty hunter taking care of a child or big clash-of-empires stuff.
No. We expect it to not contradict itself just because the author was lazy and didn't bother to think about non-contradictory solution. We expect it to not give us some pretty puzzling mess, that basically changes everything around, with the general idea "meh, think about some explanation by themselves, I'm bored".
That certainly is a valid thing to do, I understand why this approach leads you to concluding that TLJ is a bad film because it seems to invalidate things you thought were clear.
It's a bad film because the plot is poorly written, the actors acting is weak, characters are set in range from "just stupid" to "who put this idiot in command?", many plotlines are essentially meaningless and did not give anything except demonstrating "how good we are in 3D", and the lessons authors are trying to put in us with the subtility of hundred-ton steam hammer are mostly nonsensical.
I'm just coming at it from a bit of a different direction: Since the Star Wars universe never pretended to be that rules-driven, I never assumed I knew everything there is to know about it.
It is one things to play outside the rules. It's the other thing to declare that there is no rules, and everything we seen before was just some kind of weird coincidence.
If the old geezer on the throne can suddenly throw lightning, then that's not a problem for me: He's an evil wizard-emperor, of course he can shoot lightning from his fingertips.
And in-universe it does not contradict anything.
But for an approach like yours, this just creates problems: Now the previous films in the series are lacking an explanation for why that ability was never used by Obi-Wan, Vader or Yoda.
Er, because it is pretty clear that this ability is linked with Dark Side. So good guys could not use it. The Vader question is a bit more complicated, but does not contradict anything, because Vader was mentioned to be weaker in Force than Emperor & presumably was unable to do such trick (later it was established by canon that his life-support system does not allow such tricks)
When Luke uses telekinesis to retrieve his lightsaber in ESB, this suddenly opens up questions about why Obi-Wan didn't just use that ability in ANH.
Er... because Obi-Wan never actually wanted to win the duel with Vader, allo!
That wouldn't make a script better, though, and it would impose limits on storytelling that are kinda unnecessary (IMHO, of course).
No. If they put something that directly contradict what we saw before, they should put SOME explanation in.
To me, that just implies that hyperspeed ramming is very limited in its applications and can't be easily weaponized, but again, you do you.
To me, to you...
Seriously, taking your approach, they could just show public a bland black screen with short synopses of what is supposed to be in the movie. Because, duh, "viewers should imagine it themselves".
There are limits to the suspension of disbelief. The internal logic is the one most strict.