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Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.

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Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:56 am

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The E wrote:
The basic error you're making is treating these films as documentaries: You're watching them the same way you'd be watching something like Band of Brothers or Midway, films or tv shows where you can look at what's on screen and make a fairly detailed list of things the people who made it got right or wrong about a given battle or a given person portrayed in it. The first words on screen in all Star Wars films are "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....", words that imply that what you are watching is not a documentary, but a myth, a story handed down through the generations. It's almost as if you're reading Beowulf and are going "well, this monster is obviously a plot hole, there was nothing like that in ancient norse times".


Nah. It is the violation of INTERNAL logic, because the mere possibility of such attack basically made plots of episodes IV and VI utterly irrelevant: why bother with attacking Death Star reactor, if you could just ram it with an old freighter, loaded with worn-out army boots?

The fiction movie could violate external logic: this is fine. But if it star to violate its own internal logic, the "what can be" and "what can not" of its own universe - it means that the movie team done a pretty bad job.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 9:02 am

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Imaginos1892 wrote:But then, if one ship can destroy most of a fleet with a hyperspace jump, none of the space battles in any of the movies made any sense at all.


Basically by this move authors reduced the whole SW combat settings to the exchange of hyperspace-capable ISBM's. There is no reason to build any warships at all (with the exception of police forces), because they could be destroyed by the cheapest ram-ships availble. Also, since in movie VII it was shown that planetary shield could also be penetrated by hyper-jumping, and movie VIII introduced the ability to track ships in hyperspace, there are no reasons to even bother with the fleet. You could just launch your inter-stellar ballistic missiles directly against the enemy planets & warships from your home.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top
Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by The E   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 11:01 am

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Dilandu wrote:Nah. It is the violation of INTERNAL logic, because the mere possibility of such attack basically made plots of episodes IV and VI utterly irrelevant: why bother with attacking Death Star reactor, if you could just ram it with an old freighter, loaded with worn-out army boots?


* There is no indication of Rebel capital ships at Yavin (since most of whatever ready force they had got spent securing the Death Star plans)
* There is no indication that a suicide attack by a mon cal cruiser would inflict fatal, or even crippling, damage on a vessel the size of the Death Star (you're essentially saying that if a Destroyer colliding with a Battleship will take the BB out of action, then surely a torpedo boat ramming a nuclear aircraft carrier will also do the job, which is ... errr ... not so)

The fiction movie could violate external logic: this is fine. But if it star to violate its own internal logic, the "what can be" and "what can not" of its own universe - it means that the movie team done a pretty bad job.


The problem for that line of argumentation is that it assumes that because a given strategy was not dismissed on-screen, it was never brought up in discussion in-universe. Maybe there are boundary conditions to what Holdo did that we aren't aware of; maybe this maneuver only works while in deep space, maybe it only works at a specific distance from the target, maybe maybe maybe.

I mean, just because nukes are an option around here, we haven't stopped sending infantry places, have we?


This again comes back to treating the movies as documentaries. You thought you knew what the rules of the universe were, but then the movie showed you something different.

I'm curious now: If this is such a big issue for you, why is the Emperor using force lightning okay? Nothing in previous Star Wars films showed that that was possible, but then and there it is; So if that had been an option all along, why didn't Vader and Obi-wan have a lightning duel in the hallway?
Just like with the ramming sequence, we have never seen or heard anyone on-screen doing something similar.

(The difference is, of course, that you're willing to extend your suspension of disbelief there, but chose not to in the lightspeed ramming sequence's case)

Dilandu wrote:Basically by this move authors reduced the whole SW combat settings to the exchange of hyperspace-capable ISBM's. There is no reason to build any warships at all (with the exception of police forces), because they could be destroyed by the cheapest ram-ships availble. Also, since in movie VII it was shown that planetary shield could also be penetrated by hyper-jumping, and movie VIII introduced the ability to track ships in hyperspace, there are no reasons to even bother with the fleet. You could just launch your inter-stellar ballistic missiles directly against the enemy planets & warships from your home.


You have two options: You either try to work the existence of hyperspace ramming into your existing concept of the universe and try to come up with reasons why it wasn't used as a general tactic, or you complain about it.

Personally, I find theorycrafting about the Universe more fun than complaining, but you do you.
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Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:16 pm

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The E wrote:The problem for that line of argumentation is that it assumes that because a given strategy was not dismissed on-screen, it was never brought up in discussion in-universe. Maybe there are boundary conditions to what Holdo did that we aren't aware of; maybe this maneuver only works while in deep space, maybe it only works at a specific distance from the target, maybe maybe maybe.


Then it must be EXPLAINED to the viewers. The explanation may be literally any - that it was some specific conditions, or some unforeseen flaw in "Supremacy" protection, or just the one-on-a-billion dumb luck. But it MUST be explained, so it would seems to be logical.

Authors could remedy the whole mess by just one line from C3PO: "I can't believe it - the probability of hyperjump ramming success was 1 to 342 billion!" And everybody would be completely satisfied, because it wouldn't be a logical contradiction, but just a low-probability luck. Or Force.

But WITHOUT explanation, it is all just a really bad hole in logic.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top
Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:21 pm

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The E wrote:
You have two options: You either try to work the existence of hyperspace ramming into your existing concept of the universe and try to come up with reasons why it wasn't used as a general tactic, or you complain about it.


Since this tactics changes completely EVERYTHING we knew about Star Wars space combat, and there were given no reason to assume that it works only in specific conditions, then it is utterly pointless to "work the existence". Especially considering that there were no indication of every single warship being scrapped by Episode IX, and replaced with ISBM's.

Considering that Disney rather actively tried to retcon the most outrageous parts of SWVIII out of canon, we could safely assume that hyperspace ramming would never ever be mentioned again. So, it is double pointless.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top
Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by The E   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:47 pm

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Dilandu wrote:Then it must be EXPLAINED to the viewers. The explanation may be literally any - that it was some specific conditions, or some unforeseen flaw in "Supremacy" protection, or just the one-on-a-billion dumb luck. But it MUST be explained, so it would seems to be logical.


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.

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.

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. 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.
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. 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.

Authors could remedy the whole mess by just one line from C3PO: "I can't believe it - the probability of hyperjump ramming success was 1 to 342 billion!" And everybody would be completely satisfied, because it wouldn't be a logical contradiction, but just a low-probability luck. Or Force.


They could. They could spend line after line recapping events that happened in other stories and explaining why something that worked there doesn't work here.

That wouldn't make a script better, though, and it would impose limits on storytelling that are kinda unnecessary (IMHO, of course).

Dilandu wrote:Since this tactics changes completely EVERYTHING we knew about Star Wars space combat, and there were given no reason to assume that it works only in specific conditions, then it is utterly pointless to "work the existence". Especially considering that there were no indication of every single warship being scrapped by Episode IX, and replaced with ISBM's.


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.
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Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 2:11 pm

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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.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top
Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 2:18 pm

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The E wrote:
That wouldn't make a script better,


WHAT could make this script better, except of throwing it away as soon as it was presented?

Seriously, they gave Star Wars movie to the author, who didn't even like Star Wars, and who wanted to make a post-modernist movie about social questions which have as little with Star Wars as he possibly could. Post-modernism is a plague of modern culture by itself, but squeezing it into Star Wars worked even worse. As a result, we saw characters acting stupidly, idiotically & moronically without any reason to, plotlines that went literally nowhere (obviously they existed only so author could said "take that!" to viewers), and most importantly for Star WARS movie - boring and nonsensical battle sequences.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top
Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by The E   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 4:41 pm

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...in your opinion. Which I do not share.
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Re: Mourning Star Wars - Leaks Destroy Hope.
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Dec 10, 2019 4:53 pm

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The E wrote:...in your opinion. Which I do not share.


Please explain to me how commander Holdo actions could be considered as anything but idiotic? She basically provoked a mutiny, which could be easily averted if she just explained to concerned high ranks what exactly is she have in mind. There were literally zero reasons for secrecy.

Or the absolute idiocy of Rose Tico action? Her insane babble about "not killing the enemy but saving who we love" is not only the social propaganda, pushed down viewer's throats with the power of hydraulic press, but also literally make no sence; Finn was doing exactly that! He was trying to save peoples he loves, even by self-sacrifice!

So please, explain to me HOW should I view this moments to not be appaled by their absolute idiocy?
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top

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