That hyperdrive suicide attack looked beautiful, so I’ll give it a pass. I thought she was just going to literally jump into Snoke’s ship, which would’ve fit with what I understand about how hyperdrive could work. Since the effect of slicing through it was nearly the same, that embellishment didn’t bug me. But yes to everything else you said.
The whole tracking thing was pretty strange. When Hux announces they have them on the end of a string, it seems like some kind of cunning plan. Snoke is chuckling at the ingenuity of that plan after Hux explains himself. How exciting! Is there a spy in the resistance fleet?
No, they just have a new technology that means that nobody can elude them ever again. Someone forgot to tell Snoke they had it.
Oh yeah, I kept expecting there to be more to that. Like maybe they could track Finn somehow because stormtroopers had some kind of beacon implanted. At first I thought it would be revealed that’s why he was trying to leave. Or maybe Kylo could find them because of his connection with his mother (which would be even sillier for Snoke to overlook).
I think the movie was mostly done by the time Fisher passed, I don’t think they really had a chance to rework things without delaying and seriously rewriting the film.
It’s odd. The way she is introduced, it feels like Laura Dern was brought in because Carrie Fisher couldn’t complete her role, but of course we know Carrie finished filming and has many more scenes in the film. It was disconcerting as I kept thinking “was Leia sidelined because Carrie passed?” but I guess the script was just coincidentally structured that way. I do suspect Luke’s dialogue during their scene was re-written, as it plays beautifully as a goodbye/homage to Carrie Fisher.
Had Poe and Rey really never met? No one introduced them after the battle of Starkiller Base? Finn was the only one who knew them both I guess, and he was bacta’d up.
I kind of figured that it was going to be that they were able to track the beacon they were using for Rey, which would leave them with needing to choose whether to keep the beacon going until Rey could join them or whether to destroy it and leave her without a way to find them. ]
Doesn’t Han make some comment in the original Star Wars about needing to calculate your hyperspace course to avoid hitting things? I mostly figured that the cruiser hadn’t fully entered hyperspace at the close range of those ships.
I thought the Laura Dern and Poe thing could have been done better, but basically I read it as neither one trusted or liked the other and so weren’t willing to share plans. Both made incorrect assumptions about the other. Laura didn’t think that demoted Poe needed to know about the plan, and he was the only one who seemed upset about not knowing.
The bombers flying in close formation did annoy me a lot, as did the later comment about getting their whole bomber fleet destroyed…there were like 4 of them.
I also read the whole dreadnaught thing as standard imperial/first order hubris and overconfidence. Same thing that did Snoke in.
What bothered me was I thought Y wings and B wings were the bombers. I guess they gotta sell more toys.
Kylo is “growing”? He has been around for 2 movies, when will his ‘growth’ complete, in the next trilogy?
Look, he dumped the stupid helmet and voice modulator. Just how much character growth do you think fits in a single movie?!
At first glance I thought those WERE B-Wings, and got very disappointed when we got the closer look and they were clearly a completely new thing. At least there appeared to be some A-Wings in there?
What are you trying to say? Are you upset that his character had an arc in this movie?
I also like that Snoke was basically, “Stop trying to be Vader.”
it is interesting that pretty much all the Skywalker men are irritating teenagers.
An arc? He is the exact same shallow character he was when he was first introduced. That’s not always an issue but he’s not menacing or insane or anything other than looking like he’s suffering from a severe form of constipation.
Really? He’s certainly still the angry conflicted character, but he killed Snoke, couldn’t bring himself to kill his mother, and has whatever thing going on with Rey. That was certainly new for his character as far as I know.
He grew up idolizing his grandfather (Vader), even taking it as far as dressing the part. He was powerful but raw and not completely trained, he resented his parents and the same anger that fueled him made him careless.
In VIII, through Snoke’s “teaching” and his hidden manipulations, Kylo is pushed to leave the past behind. He smashes the helmet, he stops idolizing Vader, and while not knowing he’s being used, he connects with Rey and they form a real bond. We learn specifics about Kylo’s past, that he felt betrayed by Luke (and understandably so). He doesn’t just hate Luke because he thought Luke was going to kill him, he’s angry that Luke didn’t believe in him, wouldn’t train him, and was afraid of him. And we see through Rey’s frustrations that they share some common ground on wanting to be accepted and trained—truly looking for parental figures who weren’t flawed as much as for teaching, though Kylo would never admit that. And in Rey, Kylo sees hope that together they could throw away both the past that’s damaged them and topple Snoke and rule together, set things right.
He was never shallow, and in this movie his motives are explored further and his goals shift. I don’t know what else to tell you if you don’t see it.
Driver is excellent in the role. People seem quick to categorize Kylo Ren’s petulance as some sort of narrative or performative weakness, when it’s neither.
Even though I’m disappointed with the lack of character arcs of any kind in this movie (including Kylo Ren, I’d have to agree), I will still defend Adam Driver’s portrayal of the character. But he was better in the first movie. It’s not like anyone had much material to work with here, sadly…
Totally agree.
Argh, this bothered me so much! If this was an effective tactic, you better believe every fleet would have a spare couple ships to use as a fleet-killing hyperdrive missile.
I agree with all your other gripes.
Also, I guess Jedi can now do astral projection? So much plot armor in this one.
He didn’t grow up idolizing Vader, he found out he was related to Vader around the age of 25, although it seems Snoke had been “influencing” him since his teens.
As for the rest of your characterization I see where you’re coming from but to me actions make characters and, generally speaking, people. He starts as a conflicted, angry, cruel young man who solves his problems through violence and that’s what he is at the end of this movie too. He seems to be conflicted about mom and dad not giving him enough time/love and his master being afraid of him but what about the slaughtering of people left and right, many of them innocents? Why does that not cause any inner conflicts? When a person goes that far, they are way beyond whatever trauma started their downfall, this is why Stalin’s mass murders can’t be explained by his father beating him up as a child.
The character seems shallow to me because the melodrama portrayed through his interaction with Vader, his parents, Rey and Luke is something that should be at the origin of him being unable to keep a job and maybe start doing drugs not at the origin of him slaughtering friends/relatives/strangers and being responsible for a genocide.
Ugh. That was painful.
…thats the only silly thing that I can forgive, as I took it that yeah…he can do that, but basically the strain of it kills him.