In a galaxy far, far away... [Star Wars omnibus thread]

[Yw-slayer]

Anything that pisses off people who consider themselves "hardcore" Star Wars fans, and who take this shit way too seriously, gets a massive YES!!!!! from me.

The Last Jedi is definitely the best Star Wars movie ever.

[novicius]

YW is the Loki of the GTXF.

[Yw-slayer]

May the Troll be with you.

(I honestly thought it was a good movie)

[Rare White Ape]

As did I.

[Kchrpm]

MR2:

Spoiler:

And where are the other people who left with Kylo Ren? Someone suggested that they were the red guards around Snoke but I don't think so

Jason and I were talking about that. The people that left with Kylo are likely "The Knights of Ren" and my guess is that they were off doing other things for the First Order/Snoke at the time. They could easily be brought in as the underlings to Kylo in IX as part of the antagonist team, to attack the Resistance, Rey *and* Kylo.

[Kchrpm]

And I thought I understood the Force but now I don't, all these strange new powers and such.

They intentionally wanted to mystify the Force some more, bring it back from vaunted bloodlines and midichlorians. I think the actual explanation given was pretty cool. A lot of the abilities they showed were pretty similar to and/or plausible based on things we've seen before, or that they've shown before in other media (apparently one big thing in particular was just done in Star Wars Rebels), but the fact that it doesn't necessarily have hard and fast rules or limitations seems to be intentional. It's a mystic cosmic force of the galaxy, after all.

[Rare White Ape]

Includes spoilers to Rebels and Ep 8, in case you were wanting to watch it:

Spoiler:

I'm a geek so I read a lot of the expanded universe novels back in my feckless yoof, especially some of the work of Michael Stackpole including his X-Wing series and I, Jedi. They contain some of the earliest explorations of Jedi powers beyond what was depicted in the original trilogy, after the Thrawn trilogy was written and kicked Star Wars back into the mainstream. It goes without saying that if you took what was in those three original films in isolation as your only reference then you're missing out on a LOT of stuff. Suffice to say, Disney didn't fully throw out the entire Legends catalogue when they wiped the slate clean. There is still a ton of content from the expanded universe that has made it into the new trilogy, it has just been very faithfully adapted and used in the new storyline.

This is probably why it was a bit WTF?? for people when Leia transported herself back to Home One after the bridge got blown off the ship - there are a lot of subtleties in the current depiction of the Force that are not completely new, they've always been there but not everyone would have ever consumed media that has touched on it before. If Leia ever gave up on leading the resistance, she would have had plenty of free time to undertake proper Jedi training, and she would therefore be extremely powerful, given her lineage. It's easy then to understand that in a moment of sheer desperation, as her life is in grave danger, she would easily find the power to pull herself back to safety.

It's seen in other feats of physical and mental strength from untrained Force users as well: a young Anakin Skywalker built C-3PO and won his first pod race. His son Luke blew up the first Death Star without his targeting computer in his first time piloting an X-Wing. Rey is an accomplished pilot and martial artist, and nearly bested Kylo Ren the first time she ever used a Lightsaber. She also resisted Ren's mind probe, which we saw utterly devastate Poe Dameron only a few minutes earlier in the film. These people are not just lucky golden children of desert planets full of sand that's coarse and gets everywhere. They've got a gift that allows them to do amazing tasks without even trying. And they're not the only examples - the old expanded universe absolutely contains instances where a character always had something inside them that has always been there but they didn't realise it, as in Rey, who is now woke AF to the Force.

Even the stuff in Rebels isn't too far out of the realms of 'realism' in Force lore. Kanaan lost his vision and still gets around like a mad man. They find a pack of Loth-wolves who transport the main characters through caves in a dream state from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere of Lothal. There is a huge creature called The Bendu who is neither dark or light, but sees all things and takes no sides, only giving guidance to those who are balanced, and thinks little of the Sith Holocron that Kanaan and Ezra had worked themselves into a lather over. It's all fascinating stuff once you get into it.

[Freude am Fahren]

Do we learn the identity of Supreme Leader Snoke?

(Yes or no will do, no spoiler necessary. I’m still going to watch it no matter what).

Yes.

We did???

Spoiler:

Other than seeing him in non-holigram form, what did we really learn about him?

I overall liked it, but thought they went a bit forced on the comedic relief (I like the "Guardians effect" way of putting it).

That said, some of the 'odd' moments are fitting for Star Wars. Think about the originals and how odd they were when they came out. I think the series may have been taking itself too seriously lately. But some of the moments were really poorly chosen. The shirt comment was the worst. Totally the wrong moment for a comment like that.

The Disney was strong with this one. You could just feel the mouse's influence in a lot of parts.

[Cam]

Yeah, I think it's a kids movie, but then there are graphic scenes too.

[Kchrpm]

I thought the shirt comment was great. I don't think it's a kids movie, just like I don't think Empire Strikes Back was a kids movie. I think it's a 18-35 male movie, like almost all Star Wars and action movies have been for decades now. The relative/perceived maturity of that demographic shifts over the years, and between people, and the broad-ness of the comedy included can confuse things.

FaF, RE: Snoke:

Spoiler:

My take is that we find out he doesn't matter. He's no one, a red herring, meant to hide us from the true antagonist of the series: Kylo. Just like we find out who Rey's parents are: no one. I really hope they don't retcon either into being more important lore-wise.