Cave Bear said:

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Strykur said:

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It sucked, and the franchise is now on life support. Where the **** do you go from here?

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Is the franchise now on life support? They're still making mountains of cash off these things with no end in sight

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There's no way the franchise is in worse shape now than after the prequel trilogy. Or when the OT ended and there was nothing but crappy TV movies about Ewoks and some video games to keep it going.

BearForce1 said:

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my brother also pointed out that if they could just lightspeed through destroyers and dreadnaughts, why haven't they been doing that all along?

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Pretty obvious: because it's a kamikaze mission. Why would you destroy your own ship unless in a truly desperate situation?

OskiDeLaHoya said:

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1) I get that Poe disobeyed orders earlier in the movie, but it made no sense for the Vice Admiral not to share her plan of setting course for the abandoned base. If she'd shared her plan, we wouldn't have had the idiotic plot Poe had to track down a hacker or whatever

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Why would she share her plan with some lower-ranking hothead who just got demoted?

ducky23 said:

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To MB's point that you have to suspend belief to watch Sci-fi. That's kinda true. But not really. You have to suspend belief to accept the rules of the new universe that's been created. Like you have to accept that the force exists. But you can't just break the rules that the new universe has already set up. Rey shouldn't be able to just pick up a lightsaber and be a badass. She's trained for like what, half a day with luke? Luke was training with yoda for months and he still sucked as a Jedi. And once Leia starts flying thru space, that's when you have to throw your hands in the air and say, bull****.

---

Is Rey actually a badass? Watch that throne room battle closely. She struggles to hold off one guard while Kylo takes out a whole bunch by himself. She does have moments, like making a lucky light-saber throw to hit that one guy in the head. But she's nowhere near an expert.

I have no idea why people are bothered by the "logic" of Leia flying in space. She is able to stay alive long enough to pull herself back towards the ship, and then she needs major medical attention. Seems fine to me. Luke was able to prevent himself from dying after his hand was cut off and he dropped down a gigantic shaft in Cloud City. He was able to control his fall and pull himself towards a garbage chute. Then he telepathically communicated with another Force-sensitive person (Leia) to be rescued. Seems like most of the stuff that happened in this movie is not too far off from that.

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to. This sounds like an argument for no more Star Wars, period.

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to. This sounds like an argument for no more Star Wars, period.

---

At this point I'd be delighted if that were the case. As far as I'm concerned, they've not only already killed the story I loved, they also desecrated its corpse.

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

I should add that they weren't nearly as severe, nor seem so capriciously inserted

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

MoragaBear said:

---

Who's to say that the rules of space are the same in the Star Wars galaxy? Why should it be so unbelievable that someone could float in space and possess enough powers to get back to the ship when it's someone like Leia? Why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted? Why should bombers not work in their world in space? If you go to enjoy the movie, why get sidetracked by things like that?

Rey was special from the beginning. She was better in combat than those on her planet. She was extremely bright and resourceful. She prevented Ren from reading her mind, which he found mystifying. The new story line is showing that people can be gifted without being Jedi's, like how Finn was at least competent with a light saber (which also drove some people crazy). I think some were so profoundly impacted by the first 2-3 movies that if you move the bar or get outside of the lane one's used to or expects, it's almost a sacrilege.

Just keep the ewoks and gungans away and I'm cool as long as I like the story line.

The thing is, it's all a matter of preference and personal taste. I'm not telling anyone they should love the movie, just saying it's a shame to miss out on the joy of it. It seems like some here are speaking in absolutes, though, like of course this is a terrible movie that thinking people should hate.

I'd hate to miss out on the magic of Star Wars by thinking like that. I hope they make dozens more, as long as I like the characters and story lines. I love that Disney bought the franchise and brought new life into the series with new and talented directors and look forward to many years more of enjoyable entertainment, just like I'm glad that my favorite series -Game of Thrones- will live on in a prequel or sequel series, even though it won't be produced by Benioff and Weiss.

---

She got sucked out the scene just before, by an obvious decompression.

That was the universe they established one scene prior. Then they pretend they didnt...

Honestly, you can't have a universe with no rules. How could you choose to defend THAT?

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

Strykur said:

---

It sucked, and the franchise is now on life support. Where the **** do you go from here?

---

Is the franchise now on life support? They're still making mountains of cash off these things with no end in sight

---

There's no way the franchise is in worse shape now than after the prequel trilogy. Or when the OT ended and there was nothing but crappy TV movies about Ewoks and some video games to keep it going.

---

reports are that this has the worst second week drop off of all 9 movies.

It isn't about mountains of cash, it is about expectations and hitting projections.

sycasey said:

---

OskiDeLaHoya said:

---

1) I get that Poe disobeyed orders earlier in the movie, but it made no sense for the Vice Admiral not to share her plan of setting course for the abandoned base. If she'd shared her plan, we wouldn't have had the idiotic plot Poe had to track down a hacker or whatever

---

Why would she share her plan with some lower-ranking hothead who just got demoted?

---

Poe should have been executed. His mutiny alone caused the deaths of all those rebels.

That seemed to be completely ignored as just happenstance. And since it was caused by a mutiny and disobeying a direct order from the highest ranking person in the organization... Just hang him.

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really. It's not a huge stretch to think that the in-universe technology exists to get people back on board a ship without depressurizing the whole thing.

LunchTime said:

---

sycasey said:

---

OskiDeLaHoya said:

---

1) I get that Poe disobeyed orders earlier in the movie, but it made no sense for the Vice Admiral not to share her plan of setting course for the abandoned base. If she'd shared her plan, we wouldn't have had the idiotic plot Poe had to track down a hacker or whatever

---

Why would she share her plan with some lower-ranking hothead who just got demoted?

---

Poe should have been executed. His mutiny alone caused the deaths of all those rebels.

That seemed to be completely ignored as just happenstance. And since it was caused by a mutiny and disobeying a direct order from the highest ranking person in the organization... Just hang him.

---

If he'd been part of the Empire, he probably would have been.

LunchTime said:

---

MoragaBear said:

---

Who's to say that the rules of space are the same in the Star Wars galaxy? Why should it be so unbelievable that someone could float in space and possess enough powers to get back to the ship when it's someone like Leia? Why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted? Why should bombers not work in their world in space? If you go to enjoy the movie, why get sidetracked by things like that?

Rey was special from the beginning. She was better in combat than those on her planet. She was extremely bright and resourceful. She prevented Ren from reading her mind, which he found mystifying. The new story line is showing that people can be gifted without being Jedi's, like how Finn was at least competent with a light saber (which also drove some people crazy). I think some were so profoundly impacted by the first 2-3 movies that if you move the bar or get outside of the lane one's used to or expects, it's almost a sacrilege.

Just keep the ewoks and gungans away and I'm cool as long as I like the story line.

The thing is, it's all a matter of preference and personal taste. I'm not telling anyone they should love the movie, just saying it's a shame to miss out on the joy of it. It seems like some here are speaking in absolutes, though, like of course this is a terrible movie that thinking people should hate.

I'd hate to miss out on the magic of Star Wars by thinking like that. I hope they make dozens more, as long as I like the characters and story lines. I love that Disney bought the franchise and brought new life into the series with new and talented directors and look forward to many years more of enjoyable entertainment, just like I'm glad that my favorite series -Game of Thrones- will live on in a prequel or sequel series, even though it won't be produced by Benioff and Weiss.

---

She got sucked out the scene just before, by an obvious decompression.

That was the universe they established one scene prior. Then they pretend they didnt...

Honestly, you can't have a universe with no rules. How could you choose to defend THAT?

---

The previous decompression happens unexpectedly, with weapons striking the ship.

When the crew goes to retrieve Leia, they are expecting to open the door. No, the movie doesn't show us this specifically, but it's not a major leap to conclude that they had some other kind of technology they could leverage to get someone back on board without depressurizing. I really don't understand why this is such a big problem for people.

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

---

The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

sycasey said:

---

LunchTime said:

---

MoragaBear said:

---

Who's to say that the rules of space are the same in the Star Wars galaxy? Why should it be so unbelievable that someone could float in space and possess enough powers to get back to the ship when it's someone like Leia? Why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted? Why should bombers not work in their world in space? If you go to enjoy the movie, why get sidetracked by things like that?

Rey was special from the beginning. She was better in combat than those on her planet. She was extremely bright and resourceful. She prevented Ren from reading her mind, which he found mystifying. The new story line is showing that people can be gifted without being Jedi's, like how Finn was at least competent with a light saber (which also drove some people crazy). I think some were so profoundly impacted by the first 2-3 movies that if you move the bar or get outside of the lane one's used to or expects, it's almost a sacrilege.

Just keep the ewoks and gungans away and I'm cool as long as I like the story line.

The thing is, it's all a matter of preference and personal taste. I'm not telling anyone they should love the movie, just saying it's a shame to miss out on the joy of it. It seems like some here are speaking in absolutes, though, like of course this is a terrible movie that thinking people should hate.

I'd hate to miss out on the magic of Star Wars by thinking like that. I hope they make dozens more, as long as I like the characters and story lines. I love that Disney bought the franchise and brought new life into the series with new and talented directors and look forward to many years more of enjoyable entertainment, just like I'm glad that my favorite series -Game of Thrones- will live on in a prequel or sequel series, even though it won't be produced by Benioff and Weiss.

---

She got sucked out the scene just before, by an obvious decompression.

That was the universe they established one scene prior. Then they pretend they didnt...

Honestly, you can't have a universe with no rules. How could you choose to defend THAT?

---

The previous decompression happens unexpectedly, with weapons striking the ship.

When the crew goes to retrieve Leia, they are expecting to open the door. No, the movie doesn't show us this specifically, but it's not a major leap to conclude that they had some other kind of technology they could leverage to get someone back on board without depressurizing. I really don't understand why this is such a big problem for people.

---

Yeah, 'some kind of other technology'. A god from the machine.

Completely absurd scene and only one of many.

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

---

The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

---

To me the question of timeline is unclear. The scene effectively happens in slow motion, so I really don't know how long she was out there. Could have been only seconds.

I don't recall in The Force Awakens if it was made clear that Leia had never been trained in the Force. If it was then I will concede the point here.

Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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LunchTime said:

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MoragaBear said:

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Who's to say that the rules of space are the same in the Star Wars galaxy? Why should it be so unbelievable that someone could float in space and possess enough powers to get back to the ship when it's someone like Leia? Why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted? Why should bombers not work in their world in space? If you go to enjoy the movie, why get sidetracked by things like that?

Rey was special from the beginning. She was better in combat than those on her planet. She was extremely bright and resourceful. She prevented Ren from reading her mind, which he found mystifying. The new story line is showing that people can be gifted without being Jedi's, like how Finn was at least competent with a light saber (which also drove some people crazy). I think some were so profoundly impacted by the first 2-3 movies that if you move the bar or get outside of the lane one's used to or expects, it's almost a sacrilege.

Just keep the ewoks and gungans away and I'm cool as long as I like the story line.

The thing is, it's all a matter of preference and personal taste. I'm not telling anyone they should love the movie, just saying it's a shame to miss out on the joy of it. It seems like some here are speaking in absolutes, though, like of course this is a terrible movie that thinking people should hate.

I'd hate to miss out on the magic of Star Wars by thinking like that. I hope they make dozens more, as long as I like the characters and story lines. I love that Disney bought the franchise and brought new life into the series with new and talented directors and look forward to many years more of enjoyable entertainment, just like I'm glad that my favorite series -Game of Thrones- will live on in a prequel or sequel series, even though it won't be produced by Benioff and Weiss.

---

She got sucked out the scene just before, by an obvious decompression.

That was the universe they established one scene prior. Then they pretend they didnt...

Honestly, you can't have a universe with no rules. How could you choose to defend THAT?

---

The previous decompression happens unexpectedly, with weapons striking the ship.

When the crew goes to retrieve Leia, they are expecting to open the door. No, the movie doesn't show us this specifically, but it's not a major leap to conclude that they had some other kind of technology they could leverage to get someone back on board without depressurizing. I really don't understand why this is such a big problem for people.

---

Yeah, 'some kind of other technology'. A god from the machine.

Completely absurd scene and only one of many.

---

Literally everything in Star Wars is absurd technology. I give the filmmakers a little leeway.

sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

---

The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

---

To me the question of timeline is unclear. The scene effectively happens in slow motion, so I really don't know how long she was out there. Could have been only seconds.

I don't recall in The Force Awakens if it was made clear that Leia had never been trained in the Force. If it was then I will concede the point here.

---

"It was a great question, and one that we talked about quite a bit, even with Carrie [Fisher]. Why did she not take advantage of this natural Force strength that this character had. And one of the answers was that it was simply a choice that she made, that her decision to run the Rebellion, and ultimately this Resistance, and consider herself a General, as opposed to a Jedi. It was simply a choice that she took" -- JJ Abrams

Edit: bear in mind, it's not even clear that the most powerful and developed force users in the saga could have done what Leia did in these scenes.

Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

---

The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

---

To me the question of timeline is unclear. The scene effectively happens in slow motion, so I really don't know how long she was out there. Could have been only seconds.

I don't recall in The Force Awakens if it was made clear that Leia had never been trained in the Force. If it was then I will concede the point here.

---

"It was a great question, and one that we talked about quite a bit, even with Carrie [Fisher]. Why did she not take advantage of this natural Force strength that this character had. And one of the answers was that it was simply a choice that she made, that her decision to run the Rebellion, and ultimately this Resistance, and consider herself a General, as opposed to a Jedi. It was simply a choice that she took" -- JJ Abrams

---

So is this something actually in the movie, or is it just some stuff J.J. Abrams said? I mean, that man never met a plot thread he didn't love to leave dangling.

sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

---

The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

---

To me the question of timeline is unclear. The scene effectively happens in slow motion, so I really don't know how long she was out there. Could have been only seconds.

I don't recall in The Force Awakens if it was made clear that Leia had never been trained in the Force. If it was then I will concede the point here.

---

"It was a great question, and one that we talked about quite a bit, even with Carrie [Fisher]. Why did she not take advantage of this natural Force strength that this character had. And one of the answers was that it was simply a choice that she made, that her decision to run the Rebellion, and ultimately this Resistance, and consider herself a General, as opposed to a Jedi. It was simply a choice that she took" -- JJ Abrams

---

So is this something actually in the movie, or is it just some stuff J.J. Abrams said? I mean, that man never met a plot thread he didn't love to leave dangling.

---

It's made implicitly clear by her using no force powers except the ability to sense Han's death. That sense is validated by her ability to sense Luke's life at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Again, these powers would have been unprecedented in the saga if even Yoda, Palpatine or Vader had been the one doing these things. From a character from whom we had seen almost no use of the force, and had never been said to have been trained in the force...

sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

LunchTime said:

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MoragaBear said:

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Who's to say that the rules of space are the same in the Star Wars galaxy? Why should it be so unbelievable that someone could float in space and possess enough powers to get back to the ship when it's someone like Leia? Why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted? Why should bombers not work in their world in space? If you go to enjoy the movie, why get sidetracked by things like that?

Rey was special from the beginning. She was better in combat than those on her planet. She was extremely bright and resourceful. She prevented Ren from reading her mind, which he found mystifying. The new story line is showing that people can be gifted without being Jedi's, like how Finn was at least competent with a light saber (which also drove some people crazy). I think some were so profoundly impacted by the first 2-3 movies that if you move the bar or get outside of the lane one's used to or expects, it's almost a sacrilege.

Just keep the ewoks and gungans away and I'm cool as long as I like the story line.

The thing is, it's all a matter of preference and personal taste. I'm not telling anyone they should love the movie, just saying it's a shame to miss out on the joy of it. It seems like some here are speaking in absolutes, though, like of course this is a terrible movie that thinking people should hate.

I'd hate to miss out on the magic of Star Wars by thinking like that. I hope they make dozens more, as long as I like the characters and story lines. I love that Disney bought the franchise and brought new life into the series with new and talented directors and look forward to many years more of enjoyable entertainment, just like I'm glad that my favorite series -Game of Thrones- will live on in a prequel or sequel series, even though it won't be produced by Benioff and Weiss.

---

She got sucked out the scene just before, by an obvious decompression.

That was the universe they established one scene prior. Then they pretend they didnt...

Honestly, you can't have a universe with no rules. How could you choose to defend THAT?

---

The previous decompression happens unexpectedly, with weapons striking the ship.

When the crew goes to retrieve Leia, they are expecting to open the door. No, the movie doesn't show us this specifically, but it's not a major leap to conclude that they had some other kind of technology they could leverage to get someone back on board without depressurizing. I really don't understand why this is such a big problem for people.

---

Yeah, 'some kind of other technology'. A god from the machine.

Completely absurd scene and only one of many.

---

Literally everything in Star Wars is absurd technology. I give the filmmakers a little leeway.

---

It's not that the technology is absurd. If someone had shouted "raise the decompression shield" a second before she opened the door, fine. For it to simply go completely unaddressed as though the director either didn't think about it or didn't care is awful storytelling. If we're just going to write off this absurdity as "well they used some tech to get it done and didn't bother showing it" then I've got to question why they chose to show so many other applications of technology that aren't required to bridge such an enormous physical impossibility instead of this one.

Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

---

The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

---

To me the question of timeline is unclear. The scene effectively happens in slow motion, so I really don't know how long she was out there. Could have been only seconds.

I don't recall in The Force Awakens if it was made clear that Leia had never been trained in the Force. If it was then I will concede the point here.

---

"It was a great question, and one that we talked about quite a bit, even with Carrie [Fisher]. Why did she not take advantage of this natural Force strength that this character had. And one of the answers was that it was simply a choice that she made, that her decision to run the Rebellion, and ultimately this Resistance, and consider herself a General, as opposed to a Jedi. It was simply a choice that she took" -- JJ Abrams

---

So is this something actually in the movie, or is it just some stuff J.J. Abrams said? I mean, that man never met a plot thread he didn't love to leave dangling.

---

It's made implicitly clear by her using no force powers except the ability to sense Han's death. That sense is validated by her ability to sense Luke's life at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Again, these powers would have been unprecedented in the saga if even Yoda, Palpatine or Vader had been the one doing these things. From a character from whom we had seen almost no use of the force, and had never been said to have been trained in the force...

---

Absence of evidence is not proof of anything, to my mind. Given what we've seen to date in this series, I'm not surprised by anything a Skywalker can do with the Force.

But sure, this is not directly explained. I do better understand from our exchange why this was too much for some people, so thanks for that.

sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

---

The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

---

To me the question of timeline is unclear. The scene effectively happens in slow motion, so I really don't know how long she was out there. Could have been only seconds.

I don't recall in The Force Awakens if it was made clear that Leia had never been trained in the Force. If it was then I will concede the point here.

---

"It was a great question, and one that we talked about quite a bit, even with Carrie [Fisher]. Why did she not take advantage of this natural Force strength that this character had. And one of the answers was that it was simply a choice that she made, that her decision to run the Rebellion, and ultimately this Resistance, and consider herself a General, as opposed to a Jedi. It was simply a choice that she took" -- JJ Abrams

---

So is this something actually in the movie, or is it just some stuff J.J. Abrams said? I mean, that man never met a plot thread he didn't love to leave dangling.

---

It's made implicitly clear by her using no force powers except the ability to sense Han's death. That sense is validated by her ability to sense Luke's life at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Again, these powers would have been unprecedented in the saga if even Yoda, Palpatine or Vader had been the one doing these things. From a character from whom we had seen almost no use of the force, and had never been said to have been trained in the force...

---

Absence of evidence is not proof of anything, to my mind. Given what we've seen to date in this series, I'm not surprised by anything a Skywalker can do with the Force.

But sure, this is not directly explained. I do better understand from our exchange why this was too much for some people, so thanks for that.

---

To reiterate, my issue is with the storytelling. The absence of previous scenes indicating that Leia could possess such powers does not make it impossible that she could possess them, but the abilities in question would be so significant both in power and in importance to the narrative that such enormous ambiguity (at the least) over whether she does in fact possess these powers is a failure of storytelling.

We can surely agree to disagree. I've enjoyed the volleys.

Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

---

The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

---

I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

---

The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

---

The canon literature (which I have not read) supposedly refers to Leia having trained with Luke in the immediate aftermath of the victory over Endor, but that motherhood and politics later drew her away from the formal training. Keep in mind that she's Darth Vader's daughter. She's strong with The Force, whether or not she uses it on a regular basis.

I've also seen references in other internet discussions about somebody else in the canon literature using the Force to survive being ejected into space by creating a Force Bubble of sorts. So it's not like Rian pulled this concept out of his nether eye; it has precedent in the literature. And there's no reason to have this scene if not to show her abilities, and that the Force is about more than just lifting rocks or cool swordplay. As for the CGI, she moves in the vacuum of space as if she were using gentle positioning thrusters; it's not like her cape is going to flap around. They had money to do that any way they wanted; they chose to do it this way because that's how they think that objects really move in space.

OskiDeLaHoya said:

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sycasey said:

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OskiDeLaHoya said:

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1) I get that Poe disobeyed orders earlier in the movie, but it made no sense for the Vice Admiral not to share her plan of setting course for the abandoned base. If she'd shared her plan, we wouldn't have had the idiotic plot Poe had to track down a hacker or whatever

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Why would she share her plan with some lower-ranking hothead who just got demoted?

---

How does "we're going to make a run for a hidden base" undermine her plans more than "we're just gonna keep running"? The latter just served to fill Poe (and, I would argue, others) with hopelessness. Who wants to follow a leader who doesn't seem to have a plan?

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I agree with that, but I would argue that the decisions made by both characters are entirely understandable based on what had been established before, including their mistakes. You can disagree with Holdo's approach, but it's not a plot hole or inconsistency.

BearsWiin said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

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Cave Bear said:

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sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Cave Bear said:

---

ducky23 is correct in my view (at least in this part): the storytellers have the liberty to define the rules of their universe, but how they wield that authority bears on the quality of the story. The rules don't need to be uniform throughout to be valid, but they need logical consistency. If Leia has abilities in this film that defy the understanding the audience has formed of her character from her appearances in prior films, that's a problem. It's just deus ex machina at that point. A good test for whether the ability is deus ex machina is to survey those who have seen all of the movies and ask them whether they would have expected that Leia would survive an explosion, violent de-compression and exposure to vacuum (for an indefinitely long period) before they saw the scene. If an overwhelming majority say "no" but the scene happens anyway and the discrepancy is not credibly reconciled afterward, I think there's a huge storytelling defect.

As is detailed in the excellent review posted by MinotStateBeav, the abundance of those 'universe physics' issues are only part of the movie's plot defects. There are also a huge number of garden variety "uhhh, why didn't they just do XYZ" issues too (like the fact that there's only one evil ship with the tracking device and it's quite conveniently placed in front of the formation). That's bad writing. Moreover, if there's no explanation for things like why Leia can open the door from inside the now vacuum exposed bridge without exposing the internal hull to depressurization, then it's damn terrible writing. Moraga asked "why should people be sucked into space in their world like in our atmosphere when a ship is blasted?" There are two good answers to this question. (1) Given the rules of the Star Wars universe established in the previous 8 films, those rules of elementary physics still seem to apply; and (2) like two minutes earlier we saw this very same bridge hit by an explosion which exposed it to space and saw all of the people sucked out (including Leia), just like we would have expected. The same goes for bombers in zero gravity.

Moraga suggests these criticisms are nitpicking. Perhaps they would be nitpicking if the logical flaws were few in number or largely insignificant to the plot, but that's not the case. It's not nitpicking to object to a movie on these grounds when these issues arise dozens of times including in critical plot devices. Beyond a certain point, they tell the audience that your ability and willingness to rationally track and process what is being presented to you is not only not going to help you enjoy this movie, it will in fact be counter productive. In the words of the YouTube reviewer, what the f*ck?

This is all before other critical defects regarding the storytelling are considered, like the wholly justified reservations about the movie's comedic timing, butchering of the character of Luke Skywalker (who was IMO the second most central character in the entire story), proliferation of trope-y sidekicks and worthless one-off villains like Rose and Captain Shinyarmour, and the absurd failure to develop moments of dramatic significance (like when Luke discovers that Han is dead).

ducky23 is off the reservation (in my view) when he signs off with his FU to the 'fanboys'. You don't have to be a fanboy (or fangirl) to care about characterization. Despite being called "episodes", Star Wars was never really episodic. It was an epic built around arcs which were contiguous through the individual movies. These films may have different directors, but given the pains Star Wars had always taken to preserve continuity in characterization, it's very disappointing to have The Force Awakens invite the audience to ask significant character questions like "Who is Snoke?" or "What is Rey's origin?" only to have the answer be 'don't matter lololol stupid fanboys' like some moronic internet troll.

Star Wars is supposed to be a saga, but this is not a continuation of that saga. It is the death of the universe as it existed before followed by the reanimation of its corpse under a new and schizophrenic identity. If that doesn't bother you then you're far less likely than I am to have objected to The Last Jedi. If you also like the 'storytelling' found in the modern superhero genre replete with lazy characterization, sophomoric/kitsch/slapsticky humor, and cheap melodramatic tension, you're likely to have loved this movie and be eagerly looking forward to more.

---

The logical inconsistencies in this movie are no worse than in the OT. The difference is that you aren't a kid anymore and there haven't been years of fanboys poring over a few movies' worth of material and coming up with their own explanations.

---

No, the difference is that there weren't nearly as many of them. Those movies had their own issues but you're off base on this hypothesis.

---

So basically as they make more Star Wars movies the standards are going to become increasingly impossible to live up to.

---

Only if the movies continue to get progressively worse in the quality of their storytelling

---

This was not any worse storytelling than the prequels. Not even close.

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The prequels were terrible but they don't compare to The Last Jedi in infidelity to the narrative established by the existing films. Nor did they have anything that compares to the ridiculous scenes where Leia is blown out of the bridge, survives flying Superman through outer space, and then re-enters the ship without causing depressurization. If you want to try and find an instance you think compares, good luck. Those scenes would have been a blight even on a good movie.

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I'm not bothered by that scene. Maybe by the staging of it, but the idea that Leia could fly herself back to the ship using the Force? Not really.

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The problems with that scene:

1) Leia survives the explosion. She is clearly engulfed in its flames but suffers no damage.
2) Leia survives explosive decompression. Ordinary people have too, but instant death is common.
3) Leia survives the vacuum of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
4) Leia survives the temperature of space for what appears to be quite a long time.
5) Leia survives without oxygen for what appears to be quite a long time.
6) Leia flies back to the ship. Given that she exploded on a random trajectory into a vacuum outside of the ship, she apparently can fly quite fast.

Now as you say, maybe she can fly through space using the force...and possess the power to negate problems 1-5 using the force too. This is difficult to believe though for two reasons: (1) it's not at all established that the force allows an user these tremendous powers and (2) it is made implicitly clear in The Force Awakens that Leia has not been trained as a Jedi. No other character untrained in the Jedi arts had demonstrated an ability to defy reality to this degree, even those who are equally strong in the force.

That's all besides the absurdity of her returning through the bridge door without sucking everyone in that corridor out into space. The entire thing was simply comical.

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The canon literature (which I have not read) supposedly refers to Leia having trained with Luke in the immediate aftermath of the victory over Endor, but that motherhood and politics later drew her away from the formal training. Keep in mind that she's Darth Vader's daughter. She's strong with The Force, whether or not she uses it on a regular basis.

I've also seen references in other internet discussions about somebody else in the canon literature using the Force to survive being ejected into space by creating a Force Bubble of sorts. So it's not like Rian pulled this concept out of his nether eye; it has precedent in the literature. And there's no reason to have this scene if not to show her abilities, and that the Force is about more than just lifting rocks or cool swordplay. As for the CGI, she moves in the vacuum of space as if she were using gentle positioning thrusters; it's not like her cape is going to flap around. They had money to do that any way they wanted; they chose to do it this way because that's how they think that objects really move in space.

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I also have not read any of the novels or comics, but I do know the 'canonical' print literature is now in conflict with the films after the release of the last two films (apparently Leia has children in them that don't exist in the films--Luke as well). I was never interested in them to begin with, but can no longer consider them or their content as 'canon' of any sort.

Even if these powers have been referenced in these other materials, nothing like them has ever been exhibited in any of the films. I'm betting these novels and comics have all sorts of other extreme powers, devices and personages that would be a dramatic departure from anything in the films. It would be equally bad storytelling in my view to introduce them into the films with absolutely no development as it was introducing these powers for Leia, a character who was never even implied in the films to have been trained as a Jedi.

I also think it's completely unnecessary to introduce these powers to demonstrate that the force is not just about rocks and fencing. Characters in the movies use the force to control minds and see the future and communicate from beyond the grave and more. And if Luke had done something that was new but not more than a proportionate increase onto the powers that Jedi had already been shown using, I would not have a problem with that. To have a character that had not been shown on screen developing any capacity in using the force now use powers that are totally unprecedented in the film series is really bad storytelling. Even if the recent films had not conflicted out the print literature, relying on them to supply support for the narrative of a film is a terrible idea given what a small percentage of the moviegoers must be well versed in that material.

Is it that crazy to think that the shields they use to prevent large blasters from blowing them up create a mini atmosphere that even if reduced in nature provides enough protection for someone to survive a few moments in space?

It felt a bit absurd in the moment, but the bigger issue for me is why. Poe was arrogant and made childish /dumb decisions so they could show him grow as a character. Poe at the end of the movie would have handled things differently than Poe at the beginning of the movie. I didn't really see how this scene which was obviously going to be a huge source of potential criticism added anything of substance to the plot other than to remove a lot of the chain of command and to temporarily take Leia out of the equation and to create doubt in leadership without having to question Leia. All of that could have been done without flying through space...but whatever.

I did like the casino scene if for no other reason than to show that there is lots of life and beauty in the universe and not everything is as dark as the war that is going on. It in many ways is a reflection of the current political landscape with people profiting from war. Hell, if you wanted to go really political, pretend the light and dark sides of the force are the two political parties and the casino dwellers are the corporations profiting no matter who is elected because they contribute to both sides. Regardless of politics, I think it was important to show that the universe isn't all bad and war ravaged and there are reasons people might be fine submitting to the first order.

I think the underlying theme to the movie is the fallibility of everyone. Every person in the movie makes a mistake...most of which cost lots of lives. There is no perfect savior that is going to make everything better. There is no savior Luke Skywalker to stand in front of an army with his lightsaber to instantly restore faith in the rebellion by destroying the army in one fell swoop. There is no emperor behind the scenes who knows how everything is going to play out, can predict everyone's every move, and is indestructible as a result. These characters are far more relatable as a result.

The truth is how good this movie is will depend on the last movie in the saga...but it laid some good groundwork to potentially be very good.

MrGPAC said:

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Is it that crazy to think that the shields they use to prevent large blasters from blowing them up create a mini atmosphere that even if reduced in nature provides enough protection for someone to survive a few moments in space?

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That would be plausible if they didn't just blow up the entire bridge lol....RIP Akbar