~Beyond the Border~ > Sara's Audio-Visual Import-Overflow Retail
Star Wars Episode VIII: My favorite Star War is that gay robot
VTPHOENIX:
The gay robot, you say?
...Which one?
commandercool:
So apparently my parents and a bunch of my extended family saw it again yesterday and every single one of them liked it more the second time. The ones who didn't like it the first time liked it the second time, and the ones who liked it the first time loved it the second time. I wonder how consistently true that is? I know Force Awakens tended to have the opposite effect.
--- Quote from: VTPHOENIX on December 25, 2017, 10:40:04 PM ---The gay robot, you say?
...Which one?
--- End quote ---
Raikaria:
Spoiler: In my opinion; the majority of the film was alright; although there are a few glaring things which really drag it down.
1: Why on earth did they not evacuate a ship in that hopeless situation and do a suicide-ram earlier? Just program the computers to do it. And why on earth did Haldo NOT share her plan? The entire Poe thing; while it did actually lead to some character development and a realization for him, was ultimately created because Haldo was an idiot who refused to tell a CLEARLY distrustful and concerned Poe her plan. Woulda saved a mutiny! Which could have avoided half the events of the movie happening. I mean; what did Haldo expect from Poe? To sit on his thumbs and do nothing? Especially after he challenged her early on and accused her of treason? Speaking of which...
2: EVERYTHING with Finn in is borderline unforgivable padding. The entire Codebreaker plotline was a literal waste of time which amounted to nothing. Finn v Phasma was anti-climatic and she'd have probobly died anyway because of Haldo's stunt. Finn didn't even have any character development out of it unlike Poe; unless you want to call his suicide attack 'development'; when he was just as reckless in the climax of VII to protect Ray. [Also the fact that the same dealers supply the First Order and the X-Wings of the Resistance is a retcon. They're made by different companies from the TIE.] When there's an entire plotline you can drop from the movie and the movie is no worse off for it; that is horrible. But without the padding and the chase scene; the movie is largely monotonous and dull. It's awful that the secondary protagonist of the trilogy was basically shipped off on a filler arc just to make it look like he was doing something. The only good thing to come out of the filler was Rose; who was a pretty good character... albeit one who solely exists to create a Love Triangle and repeat the cliffhanger 'critical condition' ending VII had with Finn.
3: You seriously expect me to believe the entire events of everything until the last arc took 6 hours? Including Leia's recovery from a Space-Exposure Coma? Even Hyperspace travel takes time. This bothers me.
There were some good scenes; mostly the Snoke/Rey/Ren showdown. Always wanted to see the Royal Guards do a thing. Still; honestly; if I had to rate VIII; I'd put it as the worst Star Wars film. Even the Prequels may have had Jar Jar; but at least they didn't ship Obi-Wan off on a filler arc that takes up ~30% of the runtime.
This is probobly hugely biased because I'm a anime/manga junkie and therefor anything that feels like filler is toxic to me. And that's sadly what about 1/3 of the film felt like. Filler. And another 1/3 of it could have been avoided had Haldo had a brain and clued Poe in when he started looking like he'd be trouble if he wasn't filled in.
commandercool:
Spoiler: On one hand I'm kind of into Holdo being a hardass and refusing to fold just because some low-ranking goober decided he could do her job better than she could, but on the other hand it doesn't feel like a fully realized part of the story that reeeeally pays off.
I have a vague idea for a re-structuring of the plot that would solve that, but it probably has a bunch of other problems.
-After the Resistance jumps to lightspeed they arrive in the same place, low on fuel and somehow aware that the First Order is tracking them through hyperspace, but the First Order takes some time to find them and arrive. Let the plot stretch out over a few days instead of a few hours.
-When Finn and Rose go on their side quest they're looking for Lando to ask him to muster reinforcements rather than looking for the codebreaker. They find him and he either refuses because he considers it a lost cause and doesn't want to lead more people into a deathtrap, or he agrees but the reinforcements that arrive are much smaller than expected.
-Rather than having the tracking system be on board the First Order ship have it be a mole within the Resistance that's leaking their location. This is why Holdo refuses to tell Poe anything. She doesn't even tell him that she believes there's a mole so he has the same arc where he realizes he was wrong not to trust her in the end, but she has a bit more of a moment. This eliminates the whole "Finn and Rose on the Star Destroyer" plotline and would require the Captain Phasma stuff to take place on the surface of that mine planet if it happens at all. This also opens up the opportunity for the mole to be a slightly more sympathetic/less obvious character.
I think basically everything else could play out the same, but by stretching out the timeline a little and crunching down some kind of superfluous stuff I think it would feel a lot more cohesive. Ultimately kind of a futile exercise since we got what we got and it's canon now, but if Disney went insane and gave me rewrite powers this would be my first pitch.
Also, as for why they didn't try the lightspeed ramming trick earlier and why it couldn't have been programmed to happen autonomously, I think the idea is that it never should have worked. It required Holdo's ship to be vulnerable within firing range of Snoke's ship for quite a while and it should have been obvious to Hux that something was up, but he brushed it off as a distraction until it was too late. Holdo only realize that it would work when she realized that he was single-mindedly focused on destroying escape craft and had stopped paying attention to her ship, so she made a crazy hail mary play. Nobody would have thought to do that in advance because there's no way it ever should have worked.
Hieda no Mukyu:
--- Quote from: VTPHOENIX on December 25, 2017, 10:40:04 PM ---...Which one?
--- End quote ---
Oh, my goodness gracious me
I?m a gay man?s golden fantasy
(Star Wars Gangsta Rap Ⅱ)
That song is the only fan work spreading the gay C-3PO notion that I know of. Any other notable ones?